Close Encounters 12
by chezchuckles
Summary: CE 12: Dr. No. Spy Castle and Beckett begin to build their case against Senator Bracken but are forced to confront old wounds instead.
1. Chapter 1

**Close Encounters 12: Dr No**

* * *

Beckett checked her watch and scraped a hand through her hair, coming up on her toes in the bathroom. The mirror gave back an image she didn't quite recognize, a woman with too much bone, a woman still shadowed. She didn't like it, and she turned her face away.

Thirty seconds.

She paced to the bathroom door and back again, arms crossed over her chest, counting slowly to herself as she tried not to think about it. Tried not to have expectations.

It was warm in the bathroom - even for December - the tile heated under her bare toes. She'd left the office early for a therapy appointment with King, but it was her last one for the year. Next session wasn't until the middle of January; it felt liberating to be down to once a month.

Time.

Kate checked her watch just to be sure and then she headed back for the sink and the little plastic stick waiting there. But she could tell before she even picked it up.

Not pregnant.

Just late again, still not regular.

Not pregnant.

She let out a slow breath, relief and disappointment both, and she wrapped the pregnancy test in toilet paper and threw it away. As she washed her hands, she avoided her own gaze in the mirror. She'd have to tell him tonight, and she didn't look forward to that.

It was nearly Christmas; part of her had wanted a new reason to celebrate since the holiday was already so mired in the past for them both. But no. This was good. They still had so much to do.

Kate switched off the bathroom light and stepped into the bedroom, pausing before the wide windows, the weak winter sun barely touching her face. She'd meant to go back to work after this.

But she turned and crawled into bed.

* * *

Castle yanked the tie from around his neck and rubbed at the raw place against his adam's apple. He hated long days like this, hated how rundown it made him lately. He hadn't brought it up - not sure there was anything _to_ bring up - but he thought maybe he was getting a cold.

He wasn't sure he'd ever had the common cold before. But his body ached, his joints, he got these ridiculously intense headaches, and he felt every one of his forty-four years today.

He dropped his keys over the elephant's trunk, heard them clink sharply against hers, and then he reset the alarm with a sigh. He wanted a drink and a shower and to crawl into bed, lay his head in her lap and have her run her cool fingers through his hair.

He'd been up for nineteen hours straight on this latest project and Beckett had been in and out of his meetings all day, but they hadn't gotten a chance to really connect. He missed her. She'd left early for a therapy appointment with King and he hadn't even gotten to kiss her good-bye.

Castle grunted and realized he was standing stupidly inside his front door. He popped the buttons on his cuffs and toed off his shoes, left them in the entryway even though he knew she always tripped on them. He couldn't help it; he was so tired and he wanted to see her. Fill up his eyes with her.

He mounted the stairs slowly, the stillness downstairs already letting him know she wasn't in the kitchen, and his phone hadn't alerted him that the panic room was open. When he got to the hall, he called her name softly, the quiet upstairs both delicate and tender.

Sasha met him in the doorway to the bedroom, tail wagging at his arrival, a nudge of his hand with her nose. The dog seemed to glance back over her shoulder and Castle followed the puppy's gaze to find Kate curled under the covers, asleep.

His stomach flipped, but he ignored the way panic so quickly seemed to fill him these days whenever he saw her looking less. Instead he scrubbed Sasha behind the ears for being such a good guard dog, and then he crawled into bed with his wife.

It was seven o'clock on a Wednesday, but she was sound asleep and he wanted to follow.

Castle softly kissed the rise of her shoulder, buried his nose at the back of her neck where her hair spilled over the pillow, his eyelashes tangling in it. He eased his arm around her waist and brought them closer, his knees bracketing hers, and he let his eyes close.

It felt good. He didn't know if this was because of therapy or something else, but he'd be here when she woke.

* * *

She waited until they were settled on the Ugly Couch with their plates before she broached the subject. He was flipping through channels and wrinkling his nose at the listings recorded on their DVR, but she took the remote out of his hand to get his attention.

Castle didn't look too surprised, but his eyes did track the remote for a second, like he couldn't help it.

"I took a pregnancy test and it was negative."

His breath rushed out, part gasp and part body blow, and it took everything in her to keep herself under control, face closed; she didn't want to break over this. Over nothing.

"You took it alone," he murmured. His hand dropped to her knee but his eyes avoided hers. "I'm sorry."

"No need for an apology," she sighed. She wished he would look at her; it would help to know what he felt about this. Sometimes he compartmentalized better than she did.

"I guess you're late?"

She hummed something like agreement that meant really she was just - off. Still off. Still not right, and that made her furious in a way she didn't like to look at.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and this time she knew what he was apologizing for. Russia. She didn't want that either. Beckett pressed her shoulder to his and returned the remote, kissing his jaw softly.

"We'll keep trying," she murmured. "Or well, keep not preventing it, okay?"

"Yeah," he nodded quickly. His eyes turned to meet hers now, determination in them. Maybe he'd just been afraid to show her how much he wanted it until he knew she did too. "Yeah, it's only been six months. And we're still rebounding from everything."

"It'll happen," she said softly, uncurling her fist and wriggling her fingers against his. "Just takes time."

"But I'm ready now," he sighed. Plaintive, a little sad, but some of it obviously colored like melodrama to ease her heart. "I want to meet him."

She nudged down next to him, balancing her plate on her lap as Castle started scrolling through television stations again. She wanted to meet him too, wanted to see him - he was as real as anything she'd ever known and he didn't even exist yet.

"What if it's a girl?" she asked then.

"Then I'm toast," he groaned. "A girl? I have no idea how to do that."

She smiled and picked up her fork, shifting to sit straighter so she could eat, and Castle found an episode of that 1980s-set spy show he liked. They settled in to watch tv and ignore whatever else might be wrong.

She didn't want something to be wrong.

* * *

Her phone call came into him at noon while she was out picking up takeout for their office. Castle almost didn't take it because he was elbow deep in wire transfers that he could almost see an end to, but if they didn't have the meat loaf he wanted, he'd have to pick something else.

And Bryce was at the station next to him, looking a little too interested in his work.

Castle grabbed the phone. "Just get me the chicken," he answered.

"Castle, I've picked up a tail."

"What?" He jerked upright in his chair.

"That's not helpful."

"Shit," he breathed, before snapping into action. He blanked his screen and pushed the satellite to the main projection, fixing it bright and wide at the center of the room. He put her on speaker and called up the info for her GPS location. "You're on speaker. Give it to me."

"I'm at Fifth and-"

"East 106th," he supplied, watching the dot track her movement now. "On foot. Head for the metro at 103rd, Kate. We'll see if we can't get eyes on him."

"Lunch'll get cold."

There was a collective groan from the other occupants of the command center - Bryce the loudest, little rat - and Castle shook his head at them. "Ignore them. This will take as long it takes. Procedure says-"

"I know," she interrupted. "I'm headed to the subway. I think there's a car too."

"A car?" He felt ice water drench his guts and pressed his finger and thumb into the bridge of his nose. "Describe it." He lifted his head and snapped his fingers at Malone, but the guy already had traffic cams rotating through on his work station.

"Burgundy Xterra," Kate said after a pause. "I think he knows I've spotted him."

"An Xterra has been following you?" he said quietly. For a grab - that was the only thing he could possibly imagine. "Mitchell. Mitch, get guys on the ground to intercept Beckett."

"Castle," she growled.

"A car's following one of my team - no way in hell I'm leaving my guy alone," he shot back. "Don't argue with me."

She huffed over the phone. "The car hasn't been creeping down the street after me, no. Just - I've seen it four times in the last week. NSA sticker on the front windshield. Like that time-"

"Bracken," he growled. Shit, not what he needed right now. "Mitchell? Get-"

"I'm on it. Calling a guy I know," Mitchell said back. He had his phone pressed to his ear with his shoulder even as he was tasking a group of agents towards Beckett's position.

"Kate," he murmured. "Get off at a random stop. Don't tell me until after you exit."

"It's a secure line," she protested.

"Yeah, well." Bryce was right here and even though Castle didn't really think the IT specialist was involved in this, he wasn't taking chances with her life.

Kate sighed but they both knew what it felt like - what the last few months had felt like. Her physical therapist disappearing, the lack of follow through on Black in North Africa, Bryce dogging their steps. He didn't know what this was, maybe just the NSA reminding their CIA counterparts that they had no jurisdiction here, but whatever it was - he didn't like it.

"Be safe," he said tightly.

"I'll let you know."

He wanted to demand that she stay on the line, but he knew she needed to have her focus solely on the job. Still, he said what he wanted to say despite the fact that the CIA recorded everything.

"Love," he said shortly.

"You too."

* * *

She'd only gotten a block from the subway station - she'd chosen a line at random and it had pushed her farther from the Office - when she heard footsteps behind her. She picked up her pace and angled her trajectory to take her right alongside an office building's sleek windows, holding her breath until she caught the image reflected back at her.

She grunted and pulled out her phone again, called Castle. "You sent the boys to intercept me?"

"They were closer," he said without greeting either.

She paused by the office building and waited for Esposito and Ryan to catch up, saw Ry's lifted grin, the little wave he gave her as he came forward eagerly. Espo looked tense, ready for battle, and she sighed into her phone.

"Does this mean they're on board?"

"You'll have to ask them," Castle replied. "I'll let you rendezvous. Take your time getting back."

"I know," she murmured and ended the connection just as Ryan got to her. He gave her a hug even though it hadn't really been that long - just a few months ago she'd been at the 12th to harass them - and Espo deigned to give her a fist bump.

"Sorry, guys. I didn't mean for him to call you."

"His agents weren't close enough. Glad he did," Espo said shortly, shrugging in his jacket. She felt the winter wind now herself as the adrenaline drained out of her system, and she nodded towards the crosswalk.

"You guys with me until the end?" she murmured. She hadn't meant for it to sound so final, like such a committed undertaking, but they both took it that way. Ryan looked to Espo and Espo looked back at Ryan, both of them saying things she wasn't privy to.

"We are," Esposito said firmly. "We got your back."

"We're a team," Ryan said. His voice was quiet but held that deadly certainty she'd come to rely on from him. He'd always been the lighthouse for their team, guiding them through rough waters. She knew what it meant to have him at her side.

"You guys don't have to do this," she said quickly. "Ryan, you don't-"

"I know. I've thought about it-"

"Took his sweet time-" Espo interrupted.

"-And I've made a decision. Jenny and I are both good with this. Though she doesn't love that so much of the job will be classified, she did point out that I don't do much talking about my NYPD cases as it is."

"Plus it's more money and the team is back together," Esposito said casually. "Your boy promised us we could skip a lot of the crap they put new recruits through, start working as consultants until we get clearances."

"Yeah," she affirmed. "That's how it would work. But you'd both have to do training at some point - even you, Ry. Even if you're staying stateside."

"I know," he nodded. "Can't be worse than Espo's horror stories about Ranger training."

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head, but she wouldn't demolish his illusions just yet. Besides, maybe the training for Ryan in his support staff capabilities would be different.

"Castle also promised me that I'd have your back," Esposito mentioned, giving her a long look.

She narrowed her eyes. "I've heard something about that. You do know that's not possible. And besides, Castle and I are cutting back. His job lies more coordinating things here, and we're partners. So-"

"So you're here?" Espo asked, like he didn't believe it. "I can't see that lasting long. Not you, Beckett."

She didn't want to try to explain how they were not not-trying to get pregnant, how it would happen no matter what Espo thought she needed. "We'll see."

"All right, let's get this show on the road," Ryan said then, hands on his hips as he surveyed the street. "Did the guy follow you here?"

"I stepped off at the last second, so no. I don't think so. But they could've had someone in place to pick me up as I came out."

"What about the Xterra?" Espo asked.

"Gone."

"Then let's wander the city for an hour or so and see what shakes out," he growled, already striding forward.

She shared a look with Ryan, a smirk because they both knew that Esposito had to be practically giddy at his move to the CIA, and she started following.

But Ryan caught her sleeve and held her back a moment. "I gotta tell you now, before we run out of time. Jenny and I are pregnant."

Her heart stopped and thundered back to life once more; she threw her arms around Ryan's neck and laughed, squeezing him hard. "Oh, Kev. I'm so happy for you guys."

"That's what decided me," he said into her embrace. He stepped back with a blush in his cheeks. "Being a support agent means more time inside the building, less on the street and in the line of fire."

She clutched his arm as he started walking, her joy for them flavored with a wild and surging hope for herself and Castle, and Ryan paused again to wait for her to catch up.

"I'm glad, Ry. Glad you're coming to the dark side."

He pierced her with a long look and then nodded. "But - uh - I need a promise from you."

"Anything," she said, matching his steps now as they followed the lone scout of Esposito's form.

"If he's stuck out there and I'm back here - you promise me Castle goes after him as hard as he goes after you."

Her breath caught and she glanced swiftly to Espo, then back to Ryan. "He will," she promised. Castle would do it for her, but more than that, Castle was a man of honor. Just like Esposito. "You guys are our team. Our family. We don't leave our own."

He nodded and opened his mouth to say something but Esposito called out from ahead of them. "You guys done acting like girls at a slumber party? We got places to be."

The tension broke just like that. She and Ryan caught up with Espo and it was the three of them again, like it'd been in the beginning, their lives on the line and covering each other's backs.

She had missed them more than she'd known.

* * *

It was five o'clock and Castle had been thinking about calling it a day. Beckett had finally arrived with Esposito and Ryan in tow; she was still showing them around the Office, getting them acclimated to the level of restrictions that would be in place. They weren't officially transferred, but he'd already put in a request to 1PP for their assistance in an ongoing investigation.

Bracken.

He wanted to get this guy. Of course, now he was worried that they'd made waves, since an NSA-tagged vehicle had been creeping after Beckett. Didn't mean-

A phone call came into the command center and ruined his concentration; he didn't know why it seemed so momentous, only that it had his attention. He wasn't the one who fielded it - Malone was working the phones as part of an in-house sweep on their internet lines - but he saw Mal's face the moment he heard whatever was being said on the line.

"Shit," Castle muttered. There went the quiet evening at home he'd hoped for, ensconced within the sheltering, armored walls of his brownstone on Broome Street.

"Boss," Malone said thickly.

Castle winced and felt his hand clutch around his own phone. "What've we got?"

"We got a body," he said.

Castle closed his eyes - just a moment, just one brief flickering second to feel the exhaustion and defeat wash over him - and then he opened his eyes and steeled himself for it.

"Tell Beckett," he said quietly. "And let's go."

* * *

It was strange and wrong to be walking down the dock alongside the East River like she was back in the 12th Precinct again and rolling up to a body. It was even their turf, and she had Espo and Ryan winging her as she strode across the concrete behind Castle.

Their team.

Castle had been tight-lipped; no one had made a positive ID yet. She got the feeling that was because they were waiting on _her_. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. She had dread tingling in her fingers and making her lips feel numb.

Ryan and Esposito talked in low voices behind her, disturbing that sanctity she'd always insisted upon, and she supposed that after a couple years without her, they'd formed their own rituals and routines when it came to approaching a body.

The East River was rank this close to the industrial complex, and more than a few guys turned their heads away. But none of them put a hand to their nose, none of them looked disrespectful, and she knew that was because of Agent Richard Castle. He led by example, and at least here, he didn't look anything other than determined.

She realized now how strict a control he held over himself, how much of his natural personality he had to suppress when he was in the field. She knew the man who laid in her lap and told her dirty jokes when she couldn't fall asleep after a nightmare; she knew the man who'd bought her an herb garden and gotten soft and sweet about the little stuffed elephant he'd gotten her for her birthday last month.

She knew the smile and the tease and the laughter, and no one here saw that.

"What've we got?" he said quietly, calling to the forensic tech who stood with his camera in hand and a sour look on his face.

"Deceased is male. Tentative ID but we were waiting on you for a positive." He shook hands with Castle and her husband straightened up and stepped closer to the edge of the dock. The East River lapped below, the sound of water hitting concrete and doing its best to erode, constant and immutable, timeless.

"Beckett," he said to her then, turning slightly. "Come look at this."

She didn't like the depersonalized pronoun - this instead of him - but she stepped to the edge and looked down. For a moment, all she saw was the bright white of the crime scene tech guys' spotlight dancing off the black ink of the water, but then the half-submerged thing came up like an answer in an eight ball.

She gasped and closed her eyes, but still the image remained.

"Fezzik," she whispered.

Castle sighed, heavy and weighed down. "It's Robert Prose. He's a CIA-vetted and licensed physical therapist."

"That's a positive ID?" the tech asked calmly.

"Positive ID," Beckett replied, squaring her shoulders. She glanced up at Castle and then back to the boys still flanking her like a war party. "He was supposed to be in charge of my PT after Russia. He never called me back."

There was a moment of silence, the whole dock yard quiet and painted in the pulsing red and blue lights of the local police cars, the Homeland Security van, and the three unmarkeds from the CIA pool itself.

Castle grunted and ended the silence, put a hand to her hip in a brief gesture before he turned back to the men waiting on his word.

"Time to call Secret Service. It's a task force now."


	2. Chapter 2

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

"Bracken is making a run for the vice-presidency," she said, toneless delivery.

Castle clenched his fists as she thumbed off the television with the remote; she stood immovable in the center of their living room at one in the morning, and he couldn't bear it. But he didn't know what she needed to make it better.

Nothing would make it better.

"I can't stand seeing his face," she rasped, turning her head away. Towards Castle, who finally dropped the facade of giving her space and went ahead and wrapped her in his arms. She came, at least there was that; she came into his embrace and nudged her head in under his chin and he closed his eyes.

"Kate," he murmured. It'd been hours at the Office after they'd found Robert's body, working on forensic details and coordinating with the 12th who had jurisdiction. It was lucky Esposito and Ryan had just come on board, because they'd been invaluable in the whole process.

"I just can't... the bastard killed my mom, Castle. And now he's coming after me. The people close to me."

"I'll keep you safe," he promised. His throat closed up, black dread washing over him again. "Let me take you somewhere, Kate. A safe house in Estonia."

She pressed her nose into his chest and breathed, her hands clutching his biceps and her body so strong. He felt so weak in the face of her determination and grit; he felt like falling to his knees.

"Is anywhere safe?" she murmured.

"Safe as anything in this business," he admitted. "But for Christmas - a break. A weekend holiday. We'll keep our phones on, but we won't go in to the Office. We'll hide out, you and me, get a chance to armor ourselves before we push this through."

"Secret Service-"

"I know the guy they've assigned as liaison. I trust him enough to take a few days. Plus we've got Javier and Kevin on our side of things and they'll stay on top of this."

"Fezzik," she choked. "He didn't - he wouldn't do what they wanted. That's why Robert's dead, isn't it?"

"Either he wouldn't take the bribe to get close to you, or we foiled their plan when we refused to see the next PT they assigned us."

She lifted her head from his chest and her face was bright with illumination. "The next PT. Who was that? Did you ever get a name? I don't remember getting a name. I just - I didn't think I could start all over with someone else and you knew the drill so..."

"I... don't remember if we had an actual person assigned yet."

"Whoever it was, Castle - Bracken could've already gotten to him. Paid him off to do the dirty work that Robert wouldn't. We need to look into that."

Shit, he hadn't thought of that. Why hadn't he already thought of that? Why was Beckett the one making these leaps of logic? That was usually his schtick in their partnership. "You're right," he said slowly, frowning. "I'll call Mitchell. He can do that."

"We need to look at this like a homicide case," she reminded him. Not for the first time. "Trace Robert's last few days and find out where and when he was taken."

"I know, Beckett. That's what we have Esposito and Ryan for."

"I really wish you'd let Lanie on this."

"Bracken's plot can't go that deeply. Our crime scene guys-"

"At least let her assist. Badge her as a visitor, I don't care. But let her in that autopsy suite. She can be our redundancy, our safety check."

He frowned. "Fine. Dr Parrish is allowed inside the inner circle."

"Good," she said with relish. "Tomorrow we should-"

"Tomorrow is Saturday," he said plaintively. He could hear the whine in his voice, but he couldn't stop it. He'd wanted to take her to her father's cabin this weekend - tonight, actually. He'd cleared it with Jim and the man had agreed to stay in the city until Wednesday night, give them a chance to relax together. It was supposed to have been a surprise.

She pushed out of his arms to pace. "We have too much to do here. We can't just leave for the weekend. There are all kinds of avenues-"

"Just-" Castle grit his teeth and shut his mouth, marshaled his argument. He had to do this right, logically, or she'd never go with him. "We both don't do Christmas, I know. But I wanted..."

Her head jerked back to his, their eyes locked. She immediately stood down from battle ready, her body softening towards him.

"I wanted to start," he finished lamely. He felt ridiculous, dropped his gaze to somewhere past her, the entryway floor in the darkness of one a.m.

They weren't pregnant, but... he still felt the need to mark this Christmas over all others. A beginning. And shouldn't they honor the season in their own way? Memorial or vigilance. He knew she worked through Christmas, and he usually had as well, but the last few years they'd worked it together at least.

Last year, he thought maybe they'd begun to find ways to make it special.

God, he just felt so tired. He ached for rest. A chance to _stop._

"Rick," she murmured softly. Her voice was throaty and tender towards him and he lifted his eyes back to her gaze. "Okay. Okay, love."

He took a quick breath in but she was already coming back into his arms.

"Okay, Rick. We'll go somewhere this weekend. Decompress. Recharge. It's been non-stop since we got back here, I know. I know." She murmured to him like he needed soothing, like she was rocking him to sleep, and he let himself close his eyes and wallow in it for a moment.

"I already have a place in mind," he husked then.

She paused, her fingers cool at his nape, and she stroked her thumb along his jaw. "Of course you do," she sighed.

"I asked your Dad if we could use his cabin."

But this time her surrender was laced with joy, a stirring that made her smile slow and graceful and easy. "Sounds good. How long?"

"We have until Wednesday night, but we can be flexible. I can be flexible," he added.

Kate stroked her fingers in his hair and came up on her toes for a kiss, her mouth brushing along his, again and again, light and soft and raw.

"You know Christmas's not for another three weeks," she said against his mouth.

"I know. Figured we could avoid it if we wanted to. Work it like usual when it comes."

"Thank you," she sighed.

He cupped the back of her head and brought his mouth to bear against hers; she opened for him easily, let him slide inside. So good, so warm.

When she spoke, she kept him close, their bodies brushing against each other's, brief flares of heat at hips, belly, chest. "It's terribly inconvenient, baby, but you're right. Family comes first. We should get in the habit now."

Oh. Yes. Exactly. That was exactly what he'd been trying to say.

He was so relieved she understood.

"Now come to bed, Castle," she sighed at his ear. "You feel like you're about to topple."

He really was. He wanted to sleep for ages.

* * *

Beckett pulled her knees up into her chest and watched him sleep, the beginnings of a panic attack tumbling around in her guts. She pressed her lips together and stared at him, realized the panic wasn't entirely for herself, her life, but for him. For Castle. For her friends. For the life they were trying to scrape out by their bare hands.

She didn't know what was going on any more. She had no idea - suddenly Robert was dead, murdered because of her, and she'd just convinced Ryan that it was safer here, out of the uniform, and the NSA was following her down the streets of New York.

Sasha whined from the hallway and Kate jerked to her feet, stumbling over the tangled sheets, wincing as her knee hit the floor.

"Sash-" she whispered, standing again and coming through the doorway. The moon was brilliant through the stained glass window in the entryway and made strange lights across the upstairs hallway. She blinked, stunned by the colors and the darkness, but she didn't see the dog.

Kate walked barefoot towards the extra bedroom at the end of the hall, the pale grey walls that held absolutely nothing. Waiting for purpose. Of course, they'd had to pull the herb garden inside when it started to freeze overnight, so there were spots of green before the bay windows now, and she found the dog lying among them, as if hiding herself in a miniature forest.

Asleep. Sasha was asleep. The dog must have been dreaming.

Kate stood in the moonlight, silver now in the transparent windows, and watched the wolf in her run through dreams. Kate turned finally and slipped out of the room, trailing her fingers along the chair rail and wondering.

When. How. And would it be blue? Would it be pink? Maybe it would remain grey, soft colors added here and there. She had no idea about this either, but she wanted it.

And while the NSA stalking her on the street and Robert floating in the East River scared the shit out of her, made her feel the future closing down on her, dark and unknowable and frightening, Kate was deciding - here and now - to consider this a good thing. It would force them, as Castle had said, to push through it; it would make them fight harder, longer, fiercer. They would circle the wagons and dig in, entrench themselves, and they would get Bracken before he could hurt anyone else - not Ryan, not Espo, not Castle. No one else was going to die by his hand.

They were going to put Bracken behind bars before he could wipe out the visions she had for this room, the things she and Castle wanted for themselves.

They could do this.

Kate headed back towards the bedroom, sliding through shadows in the darkness to find her husband in their bed. Oh, her amazing, beautiful man. How he loved, how he poured himself out for her, for their dreams, for their lives. Maybe he poured out too much, maybe he was wearing himself out trying to be everything for her, for them, but she couldn't - she wouldn't - want anything else.

She found herself slipping between the sheets and curling her body around his, wanting to shield him from all of this, the terrible danger she'd brought down on his head when she'd opened her mouth and - instead of telling him _I love you too_ - told him about her mother's murder.

She was tired; Castle was tired. They wanted to rest, and they wanted to start the next part of their lives. They were both frustrated with holding back, limiting themselves. They needed this to be over.

He was right. This time to love each other, to dwell in the good they had together - that would hold them up in the coming weeks, that would remind them of what they were fighting for.

Each other.

Kate pressed her lips to the soft, warm line at the corner of his eye, slid her hand over his shoulder and brought herself closer.

Tomorrow. No more case. Just the two of them.

* * *

She supervised his packing, pulled together some of their extra bedding, and finally loaded the Land Rover - one bag at a time. Castle was messing around with Sasha when she came back inside, softly closing the front door, and she felt the edges of her sleepless night rubbing up against her bones, making them brittle.

The puppy wrestled a rope toy from Castle's fingers and went bounding off with it, happy and growling as she hid it away, and Kate came up at Castle's back and pressed her palm to his shoulder. "Anything else?"

"Just us and the dog," he answered, slowly turning around. He looked as tired as she felt, and he'd been the one to sleep through the night. "My head's killing me. You know where all the aspirin went?"

"No," she said shortly. "I'm not allowed to have any, remember?"

He gave her a flickering look, sheepishness softening the edges of his eyes. "Yeah. Sorry. I'll find it."

"Try the medicine cabinet in the kitchen," she said, easing the tone of her voice. "Did you put Sasha's bag of food in the car?"

"Yeah, I took that stuff out there while you reorganized our suitcase," he snorted.

She shrugged. "I wanted to get some stuff in."

"I got you a Christmas present," he said suddenly. Even still, he was walking away from her, searching for the dog or his pain reliever, something.

"Castle," she said. "Wait. We said no gifts."

"I know."

She glared at him.

"But you got me something and I knew what I wanted to get you and it worked out."

Kate felt her jaw tense - what she'd gotten him wasn't really _getting_ him something, more like reinventing an old gift, but fine. Whatever. He was that kind of person, and it was selfish of her to insist on this every year, insist on dampening his natural enthusiasm for spending a 'real' holiday with her. She had to remember that.

"Go get the dog," she sighed, shaking her head at him.

He grinned wider and came back for her in foyer, kissing her cheek with a loud smack as he squeezed her hip. "Love you."

"Go, go," she muttered, pushing him off her but closing her eyes a moment to feel the brush of his lips all the more perfectly. "Rick?"

He paused, his fingers falling from her hip as he made to leave, but she opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"All of it."

And she came in to cup the side of his face, deliver a softer, more tender kiss, something for him to hold on to, something to mark the morning.

She was different today. She was going to be better for him; she was already figuring out how.

* * *

Sasha disappeared into the woods as soon as Castle let her out of the back seat; she went loping off through the densely packed trees with a yip and he heard her joyful howl a few moments later as she sped away from them.

"She loves this place," Kate said with a wide grin. "We won't see her all day."

"She's a smart girl," he added, mostly to remind himself. Sasha would be fine. It was freezing, but her coat was thick and she was half wild anyway. "Hey, there's your dad."

Jim Becket was already coming down the front porch with his hands held wide; he embraced his daughter and kissed her cheek, his fingers fiddling with the ends of her hair. Castle realized that after Russia, they'd kept away from her father rather unconsciously, and he knew it was because Beckett hadn't wanted to worry him. Looking at her now with fresh eyes, the way Jim would, he still saw the thinness to her face and the raw look of her eyes, the lack of any trace of roundness to her features. She'd always been willowy, but she was more winter branch than spring green.

She still looked like she'd been through it, and her father was embracing her once more, murmuring in her ear.

But Jim let go of her and came to him next, a handshake that tugged him in for a hug, back-slapping and chuckling and an exchange of small talk that nevertheless let Castle know he was family.

"The place is yours for the long weekend. Freezer is stocked - help yourselves. Kate, honey, I haven't gotten firewood inside yet, but there's plenty down by the boathouse near the lake."

"We can get it inside for you," Kate said.

"How's your generator?" Castle asked. "Last time we talked, you said-"

"Yeah," Jim sighed, shaking his head. "Comes and goes. That's why you need to be sure to stack the wood inside at least - oh, yay high." He mimed a reach right at his hip. "Can you taste it in the air? It'll snow for sure and if it gets too heavy, everyone around here loses power."

"You mind if I tinker with the generator?" Castle asked. He'd rebuilt a motorcycle in Russia; he was pretty sure he could fix whatever was wrong with Jim's back-up generator.

"Sure, sure. I've worked on it here and there, but mostly I keep the fire going in the living room and hunker down."

"We'll do that too," Kate interrupted. "If it storms."

"I don't think it'll get too bad," her father said with a grin. "But the snow will happen. Few inches, maybe as much as four."

"Winter wonderland," Castle smiled at her, wriggling his eyebrows to get that smile she couldn't help but break out.

"Castle tell you we're doing Christmas this weekend?" Kate said, following her father up onto the porch. Castle came after them, glancing through the thick trees to where the boathouse just peeked through the winter-bare forest. Her father had wood split out there, cords stacked against one side, and he figured he ought to do that sooner rather than later.

But the bags and stuff first. He caught the screen door with his shoe and called in after them. "I'm gonna unload while you guys catch up. Beckett, nothing classified."

He heard Jim chuckle from just inside the kitchen and he grinned to himself as well, stepping out onto the porch. He trooped back to the Range Rover and opened the tail hatch, started dragging stuff out.

His shoulders were tight as he worked, like his headache had drained out from behind his eyes and settled deeper. He fantasized about lying down in the living room floor and getting Kate to walk over his back, stretch and pop and lengthen everything out again.

A fire sounded good too. Marshmallows. People did that, right? Roasted them in the fire. He wondered if her father had any. And chocolate and graham crackers. Maybe he could head back into town and pick up some supplies, have a kind of indoor campout.

Yeah. He was so ready for some downtime with her. Even without the marshmallows.

* * *

"Let's see," Jim mumbled. He was currently deep inside the walk-in pantry as he searched the shelves for marshmallows. "Oh, you're in luck, son. I've got everything you need for s'mores."

Castle grinned and took the bags of stuff as Jim handed them back. "Awesome."

"Kate likes hers burnt to a crisp," Jim grinned back. "So the chocolate melts."

"Ohh," he said, lightbulb dawning. "Right. I get it now. The marshmallow melts the chocolate too and - okay, yeah, I can see the appeal."

"Aw, come on," Jim sighed, shaking his head at Castle. "You're killing me, Rick. You've never had s'mores?"

He half shrugged and carried the loot to the kitchen counter. "Not ever had... opportunity," he said casually.

"Well, damn. Sometimes I'd like to throttle your dad," Jim muttered. And then his ears went pink and Castle winced but felt the amusement rippling between them. "Well, ah. I guess we'll just add that to the list, huh?"

Castle laughed then, and Jim clapped him on the back. Rick had noticed that whenever Jim got worked up, emotional, he tended to descend into the local speech, the rhythm of the woods and a long day's hunt and cleaning fish by the lake. He liked it, what it said about how comfortable Jim was with him, and if his own father was nothing to him now, he was more than grateful to the universe for Kate's.

"So what else have I missed out on when it comes to camp fires?" Castle asked, poking at the marshmallows through the plastic.

"Well, if you grew up with rowdy boys like me," Jim said slowly, a grin flickering to life once more. "Then you chucked aerosol cans into the fire so they'd explode."

Castle chuckled. "Actually. Rowdy boys are everywhere - did that in Afghanistan with a bunch of guys in my squad on a night when we didn't even care if the insurgents found us."

"Universal. Boys and bombs."

"Got that right," Castle grinned. "So I didn't miss much."

"Guess not," Jim chuckled again, rubbing his hand down his face. "But when you're co-ed..."

"Ah," Castle said, giving her father a glance. Was he really going there?

"Bonfires. Johanna and I would sneak away in the dark, make out. Come back when we got too cold, warm up in front of the fire and whisper about the other couples sneaking off."

Castle let out a long breath, couldn't help be reminded once more of why they did this. That murdered woman had been a wife and mother, but more than that - she'd been the woman Jim had sneaked away from the fire with, the two of them laughing and making up stories, their noses cold.

"Usually on the beach," Jim added softly. "So there was the ocean and the moonlight and far off the sounds of everyone still back around the bonfire."

"You telling dirty stories about mom?" Kate laughed from the doorway. Castle glanced up in relief and went to her, sliding his arm around her waist and kissing her temple. Grateful she could laugh.

"No details," Jim defended, lifting both hands in surrender. "He was asking me about what to do with a cozy camp fire."

"Oh gross. I don't want my husband getting pointers from my dad."

Jim's face blanched and Castle couldn't help the laugh that shook out of him. "I don't think I need pointers," Castle mused, and then Jim's face was absolutely comical.

"Oh, no. No, no. I don't want to hear it," he groaned, clapping his hands over his ears. "Bad enough I know what a long weekend away _means_."

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll strip the sheets and do laundry before we leave."

Castle had to hand it to her. Her face was completely innocent when she said it. But Jim grunted and his ears turned bright red.

"I'll uh... get on the road."

"Oh, no," Castle interrupted. "I thought you'd stay through lunch. I brought steaks."

"Sorry, sorry, Daddy," Kate laughed, untangling from Castle to go to her father. "Please stay. Castle has some master plan. You'll ruin it. I'll keep my mouth shut and I won't tease you."

"Fine, fine," her father grumbled, but Castle could see an answering twinkle in his eyes. "Just be warned. If you do, I'll start asking about grandkids again."

Castle let the smile furl out over his face, gave a long look to Kate. She was blushing now. "Well, Dad."

"You're welcome to join the conversation already in progress," Castle said easily. "Soon as it happens, you're the first person we tell."

Jim's face split wide in a grin that lacked all his earlier tease; he wrapped his arms around Kate and squeezed her hard, kissed her cheek.

"Hasn't happened yet, Dad," she grumbled, but her eyes met Castle's over her father's shoulder and she looked dazzled. Happy.

He wanted to make that happen for real. Wanted to watch Jim's face as they let him know the news. And his own mother - they'd tell her as well. How that might affect things, how it might change... it was an entirely different direction.

"So how can I help?" Jim said gruffly, pulling back from Kate. "Steaks, what else?"

Castle laughed, tugged from his reverie, and moved towards the cooler he'd packed back at home. "You can help me start everything. I've already got them marinading." He nudged Kate with a finger, shooing her out of the kitchen, leaning in close to whisper. "And you go take a nap, Kate Beckett. Got a master plan for you too."

She grinned back at him, kissed his mouth before he could say anything else. "I think you'll like my plan better. But a nap is a smart idea." She stepped back slowly, seductress and sweetheart, and then called out over her shoulder as she left, "You guys have fun. Wake me for dinner."

"Lunch."

"Whatever."

* * *

Kate hadn't meant to overhear. She'd slept hard for an hour but was woken by a dream, disoriented by leftover panic. But she'd been leaning against the wall in the hallway to wait for her heart to slow, the cresting wave of her nightmare to settle out, when she heard them talking.

"I could tell just by looking at her," her father was saying.

Kate leaned her hot cheek against the cool wall, closed her eyes as Castle's voice rumbled from the kitchen.

"Even now, you can tell?"

"She's not - there's not enough of her," her father gruffed. Kate pressed her forehead to the wall and swallowed down the urge to walk into her father's arms. A hug after that nightmare. Reassure them both.

"I don't think it was conscious," Castle said quietly. "She didn't want anyone to see her like that. It scared the shit out of me - it was so much worse."

"I wish I'd known."

"I think it was just - you know she hunkers down, circles the wagons when she's hurt."

"I used to be part of that circle."

Kate stood up straight. Castle was already rushing to fill the void. "Oh, that's not - we come to you. We both need you. When I got myself stabbed - it was here that I recovered; this is where we both feel safe."

"But not this time."

"I don't think she could've stood it," Castle rasped. He sounded hurt; there was a wound in his voice. "She barely let me... it was bad. I know you shouldn't have to hear that-"

"I want to hear it. That's what I'm saying. I need to know how it is for you both because you matter to me. I don't want that sock in the gut when you guys step out of the car and you both look like you've been on the brink of death. I worry about you both."

Kate sucked in a shaky breath and trailed her fingers along the wall for balance as she moved for the kitchen, ready to apologize, ready to promise, but Castle beat her to it before she could even step into view.

"Me? You're worried about me?"

"I know you're a grown man, but I got the right to worry over you. A father will always worry."

Kate came to a halt, felt it as if she were Castle, as if his very own shock and gratefulness was being poured into her, and she had to press a hand over her eyes to keep from crying.

Her father was - she was so thankful to him she could never express it, never make it up to him, what that meant for Rick.

"I'll let you know," Castle said finally. All other sounds had ceased in the kitchen, there was just the two men testing the bonds of family.

"You'd better. Gotta be prepared, at least. You leave me in the dark and I-"

"I'm sorry," Castle husked. "I won't do it again. Won't let Kate do it either. Next time, you'll know."

"Don't take this as a talking-to. You're not in trouble. But son, you could use some sleep too. You look like you've been running flat out for months."

Kate took a soft step towards the doorway to see whatever it was her father saw, and now that she was looking, now that she'd had someone else confirm what she'd thought, she knew he needed to slow down.

Castle looked ready to collapse. Every movement was a struggle for grace and surety, and when he blinked, his eyes seemed to close for a moment too long.

Kate leaned back against the wall and took a breath. If she went at him straight on, she'd never get Castle to agree to stop. Rest. He needed rest. But if she made it about her, about doing it with her, she could get him to agree to anything.

He needed to sleep at night, and he probably needed naps as much as she did. He'd been out there too, severely injured by a gun fight and then by shrapnel from a mortar round. And before he'd even had a chance to heal, he'd been trekking across the steppe to find her and _carrying_ her back home.

She was going to make him stand down this weekend. She was going to give them both time to rest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

They said good-bye to Jim after lunch, Sasha having appeared when she smelled steaks cooking on the outdoor range despite the temperature, and so the dog wagged her tail in the grey light of the winter afternoon as Kate's father's truck disappeared down the drive.

Castle turned back to his wife who had sunk down to the porch swing with a knee drawn up, looking small and compact as she dug the toe of her shoe into the wooden boards to rock back and forth. He settled down beside her and she came into his side, huddling close, her lips cold against his neck.

"You're freezing," he murmured. "We should go inside."

"It's cold," she admitted. "But it's nice. Sharp. I like the way the woods look in the winter."

He lifted his head and glanced out over the bare trunks, the twisting and clawing branches. "I'm not a fan of winter," he realized. "I like spring and fall all right. But it's... bleak."

"It is," she said, a little shiver of appreciation down her spine. She slid an arm through his and laid her cheek against his shoulder, wrapped her leg around his as she kept pushing off with her toe. She felt thin beside him, and he remembered again the way her father's face had looked in the kitchen. _I'm worried about both of you_.

Castle leaned his head all the way back to prop it up against the porch swing, counted the dark seams of the wooden boards above him. Kate hummed something low and it brought the dog back to the porch with them, but Sasha wouldn't settle or sit, merely pranced around the swing with her tail wagging.

"She must like Carrie's," Kate sighed. "So much better. All this space."

"I'm not moving out of the city," he said weakly. He would if she pushed it, but he didn't want to. "Not for the dog."

"She gets what she needs at Carrie's," Kate agreed. "And here. We come up often enough."

"We should buy our own place. Your dad doesn't need to clear out every time we want to be alone."

Kate went still for an instant, the swing left to its own devices and making a lazy arc out from the point of her shoe. "We - we could do that?"

"Why not?" he murmured. He let his eyes close. "Or it doesn't have to be here. We could buy a place anywhere you wanted."

She resumed rocking the porch swing. "We've already got the place in Rome."

"That CIA keeps it up for us in exchange for using it as a safe house," he grumbled. His throat felt tight with his head tilted back like this but he didn't have the energy to lift up. It felt good here, braced against the cold by the warmth of his wife, their quiet conversation in the grim grey light of the day. "The place in Rome is ours, but it's paid for. And it's not like we can't afford something else."

"I don't want to blow all our savings on a cabin down the road when we can use my dad's place just as easily."

"Well, what about Martha's Vineyard or the Hamptons?" he asked. "You love the woods, but I - I think I love the beach. Sand and sun and a heated pool at night."

"Are you serious?" she murmured. But she didn't sound affronted, merely curious. "I'd have thought mountains and snow skis..."

"I don't like to be cold," he said softly. "I - I spent a lot of time in drafty boarding school dorms or on the block in punishment."

"On the block?" Kate lifted from his shoulder and he felt her staring at him; he mustered the strength to lift his head and look back at her. She was pressed against his side so deliciously that he felt every single muscle in her abs and thigh working as she still rocked the swing.

"On the block," he confirmed. "When I couldn't do something right or fast enough, I had to stand outside the house at the back of my father's property on one of those wood chopping-"

"Oh, my God. Castle."

"Just standing. It was just - it got cold quickly."

"Did he have a place like this?" she asked. Her eyes were veiled and faded. "He did. Castle, why didn't you say something? How can you not hate this place if it's so much like where you grew up?"

"I didn't grow up there," he said easily, shifting his arm to wrap around her waist. "I didn't spend enough time with him for it to make a difference. I love this place. You took me here after I got stabbed and I sat out on the dock and watched you swim; I've cleaned fish with your dad and followed him out to the duck blind. I love this place."

She shifted now and came in closer, her palm pressed to his chest. But he knew his heartbeat was slow and steady; there were no childhood terrors lurking, no abused little boy. Castle hadn't known it was supposed to be any different until he'd fallen in love with Kate; it did him no good to lament the things he'd never had. Not when he had her.

"The Hamptons is closer," she said quietly. She brushed a kiss to his cheek and they watched the dog bound off the porch to follow some confused squirrel. "We have the money to get a pretty nice cottage down there, right on the beach if we're willing to hunt around."

"Kate, you don't have to-"

"I like the idea of having a vacation place close to home," she murmured. "For our family."

His scalp prickled with awareness but he carefully eased his head back to the porch swing, closed his eyes to let the vision wash over him. Car trips up to the Hamptons, standing before the sunrise over the water, building castles with their little boy-

Heh. "Sand castles," he murmured with a chuckle.

Kate laughed back and pressed her cheek to his shoulder once more. Her skin was frigid from the cold air, but where they met, their bodies were warm enough. He stroked his hand up and down her back, slowly, and he still felt the ladder of her ribs.

He realized he couldn't remember if she'd felt like this before Russia or not, if her body's natural svelte lines had lent itself to this bone hard sculpture or if she was still struggling back from malnutrition.

She still wasn't pregnant. They were active of course; they'd been intense and passionate, they'd been fun and silly, but one thing they hadn't been was careful.

He wasn't sure how long it was supposed to take for her body to orient again, for everything to resume the usual cycle, but it'd been eight months since that April day he'd dragged her over the border, and he didn't know how much was still really wrong. Her bloodwork continued to look good, her body was stronger than it had been, but even after all this time, her father could tell that they'd both been through hell.

Neither of them said the word _baby_ anymore. It was always a more nebulous construct - _our family_. He knew he'd stopped calling him James as well, stopped bringing it up in conversation because he felt this magic around it, this idea that he might jinx them - that he already had.

He hadn't been given any more dreams about the boy either. Their son who'd climbed like a monkey through a window to save his CIA agent father, some kind of ridiculous father-son spy team. A dream. But before Russia, he'd had it regularly.

Now, nothing.

Kate's fingers curled at his bicep as she shivered; he drew her closer but felt her cold lips against his neck. "Let's go inside, Kate." It was too cold out here for her, too much winter in the trees and ice in the air. The sky had already turned dark with grey-lined clouds and now he tasted the dampness in the weather, just as her father had.

He thought about lifting his head from the back of the swing but instead he kept his eyes closed, wished for an image of that little boy again, just a glimpse, but the sand castles and sun had been leached from his mind with the whip of wind across the porch. He wanted to see James one more time, just a moment of confidence and certainty, that the boy existed somehow already out there and was only waiting for the right time.

But he continued to drift in darkness.

Her fingers touched his cheeks, her voice coming as if from a long way off. "Rick. You fell asleep out here. Come on, sweetheart. It's too cold for you to stay on the porch."

He grunted and lifted his head, saw her standing over him, the darkness complete. He couldn't figure out what had been a dream and what had been a real conversation, and the lack of firm lines made his heart thump hard in his chest.

"Kate."

"Yeah, love, come on. Let's get you inside."

"Do you say Hamptons?"

She laughed softly but there was a strain around her mouth as she gripped him by the shoulders. "That's the last thing you heard, huh?"

"I think so," he rumbled, sitting forward now to push off the swing. But she was the one who swayed, clutched him suddenly as she stumbled backwards. Castle caught her swiftly, fingers harsh on her hip and elbow, drawing her upright. "Kate."

"I'm okay. Just got dizzy for a second."

"Did you fall asleep out here too?"

"No," she murmured and leaned her forehead against him for a breath. And then she straightened, smiled up at him. "I'm good. Let's go inside. Your skin's like ice."

He let her brush it off, let her guide him back inside the front door of her father's cabin without another word about it.

Because he knew she was scared too. They had no certainty that she could still have kids, no idea if Russia hadn't done some invisible damage that would keep them from realizing their hope. She was still too thin and anemic, rushes of dizziness that no one could understand or explain, and so he kept his mouth shut and followed her inside.

But when she pushed him to the couch and crawled in after him, he stayed right where he was, wrapped his arms around her so they could lie down together, her body fitting neatly against his as she turned on the game. He'd stay just like this, keep her here, and for now - for this weekend - it would ward off the fear.

* * *

Kate stopped pretending to watch the game the moment she felt Castle slide back into sleep; his body went slack into the couch and he even snored. She'd never heard him snore before.

She turned slowly in the loose embrace and propped her head on her hand to watch him, studied the lines around his eyes and the loose skin at his jaw. He looked thinner than she remembered, but she couldn't be sure it wasn't just the worry talking. She eased her hand up his chest to smooth the soft spot at the hollow of his collarbone, and then she ran the backs of her fingers at the rough beard he had going.

No, not a beard. Just scruffy. He'd taken to trimming it every couple days, cutting it back so that it was just a heavy five o'clock shadow. She knew he'd been doing it for her, because she liked the way it felt - but he didn't. The beard irritated him but he could handle the scruff.

She leaned in and kissed the thin spot at his jaw, laid her head back down at his shoulder. She'd get up in a minute and call for the dog, bring Sasha inside for the night, but for now she dwelled in the steady breathing of her husband, the half-snore that came with his exhales.

He was tired, but then again so was she. He was ragged in his movements, but so was she. She'd overheard her father's concern and it was for both of them, not just her. She hadn't - for a second - forgotten what had happened to Castle, but she'd forgotten that he wasn't quite recovered even still.

She'd been easing out from under the weight of her panic attacks for the last few months, slowly beginning to regain control of her body, but still troubled by the _lack_. The missing things, the tiredness that wouldn't abate, the balance that went without a moment's notice, the two-ness of their family when it should have been three.

But Castle.

She turned tighter into him and took a long breath of his scent, a new awareness of sunlight and sand in the oils of his skin. She could imagine him in sunglasses by the pool, imagine him better in the water, dipping under the waves like an otter or swimming furiously against the tide to race the sun.

She still wasn't able to picture the rest of it. Herself in the Hamptons? She couldn't imagine what she'd be doing there, couldn't find the idea of _them_ in the middle of sunshine and summer and vacations.

If he'd said Rome or Paris or Amsterdam, if he'd asked her for a chalet in Aspen or a cabin the Rockies, if it'd been the south of France or the beaches of the Greek isles, she knew what that looked like. She knew exactly how that felt.

She wasn't yet settled into the idea of them domestically.

Kate sighed and splayed her fingers at his chest, lifted up to slip out of his embrace. He grunted in his sleep and turned onto his back, but just like outside on the porch, he didn't wake when she moved away.

Kate ran her fingers through the flop of hair at his forehead, brushed it back to kiss his skin, lips tasting the oil and warmth of him like summer.

And then she headed for the kitchen and the dishes still piled around the counter, Castle's haphazard way of cooking, ready to let the rest of their afternoon go.

The storm door rattled and Kate lifted her head to look out the kitchen door, stepped over to it and opened the weather-beaten wood. The screen sang with winter wind, and she pushed it out carefully, scenting the snowstorm behind the clouds.

Sasha came barreling out of the dark in her happy, bounding stride, running between Kate and door and circling back around in the brightly lit kitchen. She growled and nipped at Kate's shoes, wriggled through Kate's legs, and returned that sense of joy to the room that had departed with Jim.

Kate sank down to the linoleum and rough-housed with the dog, wrestling her big, agile body and rubbing her head so that she ducked and whined and writhed. Sasha had her wolf grin out, the narrow snout gaping with teeth, but she licked Kate's fingers and then Kate's neck, wriggling happily.

"You want some more steak, puppy?"

Sasha bounded up and away, acrobatic in her excitement, and Kate laughed and got to her feet, a hand out to keep her balance as the dizziness rushed back. She fought through it and grabbed the plate Castle had used to serve the steaks, snagged a knife to cut up strips for the dog.

When she had a handful, Kate turned and lowered her offering to Sasha, laughing again when the puppy inhaled the steak in a single bite. Her teeth barely brushed Kate's fingers, her tongue licking enthusiastically at the juices, and when it was gone and Sasha was satisfied there was nothing left, Kate lifted up again and washed her hands in the sink.

And saw Castle standing in the doorway, watching them.

"Hey," she said, grinning still.

His smile was slow but it answered hers in depth and richness. "Hey, love. Sasha, you got some leftovers there, girl?"

The dog came to him with an excited wriggle of her whole body; the winter air and the trees did something to her they never saw in the city. And while the wolf came out in her, the dog did too - making her happier, easier, sillier than the lone, reserved ghost that haunted their steps.

"She's ridiculously thrilled to be here," Kate said, piling plates into the sink to wash. Her father's dishwasher was already full. "She's making a fool of herself. Aren't you, Sasha?"

"She is, but isn't it cute?" Castle laughed back. "Here, Wolf, play with this." Castle grabbed the empty water bottle from the counter and tossed it onto the floor. Sasha immediately chased after it, the plastic crackling against her paws and spinning off towards the fridge. Castle had to jump over her as he made his way to the sink.

"I'll wash. You dry."

"No," she said, elbowing him away. She wished he'd slept longer. "You and Dad cooked. I'll wash. Just gather up all our plates and stuff, stack them right here."

"All right," he said, easily enough, and she felt the warmth of his hand at her hip the second before his kiss caught the corner of her mouth. "Love you."

"You too," she murmured, pressing her cheek to his before he could leave her.

Sasha yipped like a hurt puppy and Castled turned around to get the bottle unstuck from the narrow space between the counter and the fridge.

Kate filled the sink with hot water and watched his movements with her eyes.

* * *

Kate looked good in the kitchen. It wasn't some male chauvinist thing either; she literally looked good in the kitchen. Her bone structure softened in the yellow light and she'd leaned a hip against the sink as she washed dishes, making her chest arch as she leaned back and handed him one to dry.

Okay, maybe a little male chauvinist.

"We should make cookies tonight," she said as she released the pot they'd used for the mashed potatoes.

"Cookies?"

"Like Christmas cookies," she said, shrugging a little. Her hair had fallen down in her face and she puffed out a breath to blow it away but it settled again over her eye. Castle reached out with his finger and combed it back, tucking it behind her ear for her.

She was flushed pink as she stared at him.

"All right," he agreed. Like he ever wouldn't. "Christmas cookies. Does this mean - trees and stockings and - and - all that?" He hoped he wasn't making a sour face; he hoped he wasn't spoiling her mood.

But she laughed and put her hands back in the water. "Oh, Rick, don't look so frightened. A few cookies aren't going to kill you."

"They might," he groused, but he nudged closer to her at the sink to bump her shoulder. He bent down and opened a cabinet door to put the pot away, took the masher from her fingers as she held it out. "Fine. Holiday themed cookies. We'll have to go into town-"

"I know," she said simply. "I love that little country store at the red light."

"You mean the four-way stop," he said dryly.

"It's a four-way stop that has a red light above it," she said, a little imperious, but her lips were quirking. "Has Dad taken you in there?"

"Once to get bait."

"Did you go to the back where they have all that rock candy?"

He laughed again and shook his head. "Love, when would I go looking for rock candy?"

"Shut up," she muttered, elbowing him aside to get him moving on the drying again. He put away the utensil and took the plate from her.

"All right, country store for cookie supplies. And rock candy. What else is on your Christmas list?"

"That's it."

"Seriously?"

"It'd be fun to do. And you said you wanted to start... marking the holiday somehow. Start our own traditions."

She had turned serious all of the sudden and Castle stopped drying to watch her, study her, see where he should be going next.

"Yeah, I did," he said, kept his voice even. "And that's a good one. You're always trying to corrupt me with your poor eating habits."

She laughed then, turned her head to look at him. "Sweetheart, waffles and cookies at holidays aren't poor eating habits. But okay. You go on thinking that."

He wasn't expecting it, but she leaned in and kissed him quickly on the lips, tasting faintly of humidity and chocolate.

"Hurry up, Kate," he murmured at her mouth. "We have cookies to bake."

"Only you can make that sound so very dirty."

"Wait," he said in mock horror. "You mean that _wasn't_ code for 'fuck me, Castle'?"

Oh, wow, look at that face. Maybe it was now.

* * *

Castle got into it more than she'd expected, but she realized he'd been holding back for her sake. Or maybe just too tired to muster the enthusiasm; she couldn't be sure.

The moment they entered Crow's Country Store, they'd been greeted by an actual, live crow who haunted the front windows with his owner. The woman was a witch for sure, and if it weren't the dead of December, Kate would've thought it was Halloween. She kept a suspicious eye on them as they wandered the aisles looking for baking ingredients, and Castle seemed to think it was highly amusing.

"It must be you," he said finally. "When I came with your dad, she didn't look nearly so intimidating."

"Are you saying you're intimidated?" Kate muttered, elbowing him away as he tried to hang on her, his chin digging into her shoulder. "Stop that. Stand up straight."

"I'm _intimidated_, Beckett," he hissed, ducking behind her as the proprietor came their way. "Hide me."

"You're a child."

"You're not hiding me," he whined, shuffling around the corner and disappearing down another aisle. Kate snorted and pulled brown sugar in a rustic looking package from the shelf; it looked like a brass tin and was labelled _Pioneer Brown_. She added it to the basket hanging on her arm and went searching for her errant husband.

"Where'd you go?" she muttered aloud.

When she rounded the corner, she wasn't expecting him to come flying out at her, gripping her shoulders and hauling her down the aisle.

"You gotta see these. We need these, Beckett. They're awesome. _Awesome._"

He pulled her to a cookie cutter display geared towards the holidays and she was expecting some kind of ornate ornament theme or something. Instead - and she should have known, since Crow owned an actual crow inside her store - the display was filled with some of the strangest metallic shapes made into cookie cutters.

"Ninjas," she said calmly, giving Castle an eyebrow.

He clutched the package to his chest. "Ninja cookies. Kate. Seriously. These."

"For Christmas?"

"James would love them."

Her eyes startled to his, and they both stared, heat flaming her cheeks and his catching as well. But he didn't take it back, didn't try to explain.

"I love them," he amended, his throat clearing. "Better than reindeer."

She held up the basket wordlessly and he grinned, leaned in to press his mouth against the corner of hers, his tongue swiping her bottom lip before he dropped the ninja cookie cutters on top of the brown sugar.

Was he dreaming about James again? She knew he hadn't in a while, just because he used to always wake and have that look on his face, a little adoring, a lot bewildered, and he'd roll into her and give her the story in between making love, as if he could will it into existence.

"Can we get food coloring and make them red and black and green ninjas too?" Castle said suddenly, dragging her by the elbow towards the baking goods again.

She sighed. Red and green _had_ been her idea, but sure. "Fine, Castle. We'll make Christmas ninjas."

"Oh," he said, tilting his head even as his fingers closed around a box of four little food coloring bottles. "I was thinking like the actual karate belts but - no, hey - that's right. Christmas. Let's do that."

She laughed and shook her head at him, but snagged the food coloring from his hand and dropped it into the basket. "We should get lunch stuff for the next few days too. I'm afraid we'll use up all of my dad's bread."

"And he doesn't have any crunchy peanut butter," Castle aded with a salacious grin.

She slapped his chest and pushed him aside, choosing to ignore that. But yeah. Her father's pantry was bare of crunchy peanut butter.

Just to give him something to think about, Kate grabbed a jar of it as she passed, smiled when she heard his outlandish gasp.

And then he was crowding into her back, hands slipping around her waist. "Oh, sweetheart. You know I love it when you tease me."

"Who said I was teasing, Rick Castle?"

* * *

"You have flour on your nose," he said gravely, shifting closer to Kate at the kitchen table. Sasha had fallen asleep under their feet, exhausted after chasing plastic bottles around the floor and barking for cookie batter - which she didn't get, of course. He'd never seen the dog quite so ridiculous before, and her energy had infected both him and Kate.

"If I have flour on my nose, it's your fault," she muttered back at him.

Castle couldn't help lifting his pinky and brushing it over the dusting of flour. Instead of cleaning her off, he ended up spreading more flour over her cheeks.

He laughed and she narrowed her eyes.

"You just smeared more, didn't you?"

"Perhaps."

"You're kind of insufferable, you know that?"

"I know," he grinned, feeling pretty ridiculously happy as well. Like the dog. Something about going away with Kate Beckett and watching her have fun, getting to be the reason she smiled and laughed, that did it for him.

She rolled her eyes at him and pressed the dough flat against the wooden board, rolling it out with her fingers, flour puffing up. Castle went on pushing the cookie cutters into the dough she'd already rolled out, the scent of cinnamon and ginger in his nose.

"Thanks for this, Kate," he said quickly, giving her another look before peeling dough from his ninjabread man. "I needed it. I just didn't know how much I did."

Her fingers circled his knee under the table; she was probably getting flour rings on his jeans, but it didn't matter. Her concern was heavy on her face.

"You've looked pretty tired lately," she said.

"Yeah. Just. You know. Work. I want to get this over with, get on with our lives." Get her pregnant. If they could. He still didn't know - could be the stress that ate at him at night was the same thing keeping the pregnancy from happening, but regardless.

"Don't run yourself into the ground though. No good to me like that, Castle." She gave him one of those soft, _please smile back at me_ smiles and he did, he gave her that much.

But she was right; he wasn't doing her any good if he couldn't keep up, couldn't pay attention - couldn't keep her safe if he was falling asleep every evening before dinner.

"It's like the moment I saw you were really okay - that you were doing so much better and able to eat and gaining weight again - I don't know. It was like permission to fall apart. I didn't mean to, but I guess we're taking turns."

"I don't really want either of us to be falling apart," she sighed. "But so long as we're taking turns. If we both went down, poor Sasha would be on her own."

He gave her a lopsided smile for that. "I'm working on it, I promise. But I'm glad we took a break. Resting up. Enjoying ourselves. I like having fun with you."

"I like having fun with you too," she whispered. Her eyes still traced over his face and peered intently at him, looking for signs of strain he knew, but he wouldn't give in to it.

"We're okay, right?" he asked, his throat tightening. "We're making it."

The flash of grief went across her face but she leaned in closer, the dough abandoned. "Yeah, love. We are. I promise." And he knew that she knew it wasn't about their relationship at all - that they were both struggling to be whole again, to regain some endurance when it came to work and life and the effort of living.

He wanted to believe that promise. He wanted to think this was the start of a better season for them, the beginning of good things. He wanted so badly to think the worst was over now.

Kate reached up and stroked her fingers through the hair flopping in his eyes, and then she cracked open on a laugh.

"You just smeared flour across my forehead, didn't you?" he said, giving her a little growl.

"Perhaps," she answered, an echo of him that made him laugh back.

"You were the one who nixed a food fight," he reminded. "I had plans for that gooey, eggy batter."

She shot him a fierce look that was more amused than she probably wanted it to be. "Don't you dare."

"It's too late now. You added like six cups of flour to it. Now it's just sticky."

"Though I know you like sticky," she said, her voice dropping, punching through his guts like a fist. "Sticky peanut butter."

"Cookies," he husked, his eyes caught by hers. "Cookies first. My ninjabread men."

She gave him a crooked lift of her mouth and leaned in, a kiss so gorgeous it made his heart hurt.

"Your ninjabread men first, yes." She gripped his chin in her fingers, rubbed her thumb over his bottom lip. "Thank you for making Christmas special for us."


	4. Chapter 4

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

They ate too many cookies and curled up in the guest room bed watching reality television - something about a family dynasty and hunting season; it felt appropriate to their surroundings. She brushed gingerbread crumbs from the sheets and reached out for another cookie, but in a second Castle had snagged her wrist and diverted the ninjaman to his own mouth.

"Hey, now," she protested, laughing when his tongue licked around her fingers for the sharp bits of ginger. "You stole my cookie."

"You stole my heart. What're you going do about it?" he tossed off, pushing the rest of the cookie into his mouth. Kate laughed and leaned in to kiss him, lightly - she didn't want all that cookie now - and then she lifted up to snag another one from the plate.

"I guess I'll just get another," she shrugged, biting it delicately.

He laughed and swallowed, reached out for his glass of milk. Like a kid, he'd stirred chocolate syrup into it and his grin over the rim of the glass was a little ridiculous.

A lot adorable.

She ruffled his hair and leaned her shoulder against his, listened to him swallow his milk like an overgrown kid. But the way she felt about him, the way her skin burned and her lungs sang with every breath of his air, none of that was childlike.

Though she could see the boy in him, it made her eager to create their own boy.

"Let's do presents now," he said, his voice grumbling at her ear.

She laughed and nudged his shoulder. "Presents, huh?"

"I got you something and I'm excited," he said, a little shrug of his shoulders that couldn't disguise the shiver of happiness that went through him.

"You don't want to wait until our last day here?" she said innocently.

"Come on," he groaned. "Don't be like that."

She felt her lips spread into an amused little twist. "All right, Rick. Christmas presents."

"Yes," he fist-pumped, jumping off the bed and turning to their suitcase, tugging a box immediately out of the front pocket. She watched him for a moment, the way his tiredness seemed to evaporate with his rush of excitement, and she was glad to see something of the old wonder in his eyes.

Well, maybe it wasn't old - maybe actually it was new. That very first case when they'd been in her bedroom and the Chinese had rolled up to her building, he'd looked at her like she was a new creation, something he'd never behold again. But instead of her disappearing from his life, they'd sneaked out and ridden the subway in the early hours of the night, their thighs pressed together and the motion of the train drawing them inexorably closer, entwined, linked.

Always closer. Every movement brought her right up against him, every look and touch and mission and case made their lives entwined until all that was left was this. This.

She shifted forward and stood from the bed, reached past him for the inside pocket of their suitcase where she'd slipped his Christmas gift in among her underwear and bras. He gave a crooked grin for that and she pulled out the wrapped package, pressed it into his chest.

"It's not - I just... it's not really a present, Castle. Just-"

"Don't make disclaimers," he said, lifting a hand and brushing her hair from her shoulder. "Your hair has gotten so long."

She went still, careful, watching him as he fiddled with the ends of her hair. His face washed with a sudden shy delight and he leaned forward and kiss her mouth. He tasted of spice.

"I love Christmas with you," he whispered.

Her heart flipped and she stepped into him, spread her fingers at his ribs and around his waist to hold him against her. The gift she'd wrapped for him was trapped between them and his arm untangled and hooked around her neck, a brush of a kiss against her temple.

She squeezed her eyes shut when she felt the dizziness wash over her, gripped his shirt to keep him from knowing. She pressed her forehead against his neck and kissed what she could reach, riding the wave and clinging to him, her lips burning from ginger and his joy.

She wouldn't ruin it with dizziness now; she couldn't. She wanted only to have this holiday weekend with him before everything went crazy.

He had finally procured a meeting with Viktor Bout and it would happen in a week, as well as some money trails they'd followed to a couple source companies that Bracken might be behind - those were going to be carefully surveilled and gone over with a fine-tooth comb.

Not to mention the Secret Service and CIA joint task force, Robert's death, and the car that had been following her. There were so many moving parts in the coming months and she wanted this quiet to be unspoiled.

So she hung on through the brief spell and then she stepped back and cradled his present to her in her hands. Small, like jewelry, and she felt a burning need to take her own back.

She wasn't sure it was right.

But he skimmed the back of his hand at her cheek and then he tore into the wrapping.

* * *

It was her detective's notebook. The one her father had given her for graduating from the Police Academy - the one Castle had appropriated at Stone Farm and written on its pages every corner of his heart. He held it in his hands and lifted his eyes to her.

"There were only a couple pages left," he said cautiously. "I wanted to finish it."

"I did instead," she said.

Castle dived into the notebook, hurriedly flipping over the miles of his crooked script and his more crooked heart, and then he found her neat, precise handwriting at the end. His guts churned and trembled as he saw her inscription: _Rick._

Just Rick. The name she'd given him when she'd spoken quietly in the dark of her bedroom, a little teasing, but effectively sliding right under his skin. No one had ever...

No one had ever. Until Kate.

"Don't read it now," she muttered, her hand covering the page and then her fingers closing it. "Just. Wait until I can't see your face."

He chuckled but kept the notebook closed, felt his chest tightening. He leaned in and kissed her, tangling his fingers in the hair at her nape, tugging her against his body until she stumbled.

"Open yours," he whispered against her mouth.

She kissed him once again and nudged her forehead against his cheek; he moved away to give her room and she slid a finger slowly under the tape at one corner, her lip pulled into her teeth. He watched her face as she opened it, as the realization dawned over her, and then her breathless little gasp as her eyes darted to his.

"Castle."

He tilted his head in question.

"I..." She cradled the jewelry box in her hands and her eyes roamed the necklace nestled in velvet. The silver disk was an ancient coin from Rome that had been rubbed and worn smooth by time, _Roma_ just about the only thing still visible. But pressed into the smooth silver was Castle's own thumbprint, the engraved black of whorls and rings in the pattern of his skin. Kate pulled the chain from the box and the coin swung softly between them, her eyes on the flash of silver.

"Castle," she murmured. When she lifted her gaze to him again, her mouth was open, lips that stunned pink, eyes wide and dark.

"That's my thumbprint. In case you ever need to frame me for murder."

She laughed, a beautiful sound that filled the room and she tossed the box to the bed and held up the necklace. "Put it on me?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "You like it?"

"It's very you," she murmured, a rise of her eyebrow paired with a grin as she turned around. He pressed the clasp and dropped the chain over her head, laying it across her collarbones as he fastened it again. She hadn't worn her mother's ring consistently since they'd been married, but he often caught her reaching up to touch a chain that wasn't there.

She lifted her fingers now to the Roman coin and pressed it to her lips. Castle laid his palm at her shoulder and rubbed his thumb over her spine. Her skin rippled as she turned back to him.

"Thank you," she sighed. "I love it."

"You don't have to wear it if you-"

"Hush, sweetheart," she murmured, her fingers brushing over his lips as she came in closer. "The coin is because of Rome, isn't it?"

He grinned under her fingers and kissed her own fingerprints, brought his hand over her wrist to tug her away. "Yeah. Because... well, it's not exactly a Christmas present. It's your anniversary present too."

"So's mine," she grinned.

Castle clutched the detective's notebook against his chest and gave her a sly look. "Go. Start dinner or something. I wanna read what you wrote me."

"I'm gonna slice my fingers off," she muttered.

"Slice your fingers?" he laughed, following her towards the door.

"Like you did when you first tried to make dinner for me," she smirked. "Nerves."

"Because I'm reading this?" he said, holding up the notebook.

She sighed. "Of course. You don't even know how many drafts that went through. And I still don't think it says what I want it to."

"I'm sure it's fine," he grinned, reaching out to hook his finger in her necklace lightly. She came closer, her mouth brushing the back of his hand. "I'm sure it's beautiful. From the heart."

"It is - at least - that," she murmured back. "Messy and nonsensical as it is."

"Stop criticizing your work," he teased, moving the coin back and forth on the chain. She gripped his wrist and untangled him, but she gave him a little wink as she moved out of the bedroom, leaving him to it.

He got to read her letter.

* * *

_Rick,_

_All these pages, all these dreams for us... your words build worlds. I don't think mine can ever compare, but I need to try. I have to try. You deserve to have the same from me, to have that feeling of wonder and being cherished and how undeserved it might be but how you never want it to end._

_I'm afraid my words are only an echo of yours. I can't say anything you haven't already said and so much better, but the rhythm of you is so deep in me that it all comes out as you. Every palace you built of paragraphs is a palace I reside, a castle. You're a castle within me and without, and everything I say pulses with your own words - I'd never want it to be different._

_Of course, when I met you, I wanted to throttle you. And I don't know how you managed to know me so well, get under my skin, make it impossible to do this without you, but there it is. One case and I was done. One case and we were partners. I might not have known what it was, or been ready for it, but it happened anyway, and Rick - if you hadn't happened to me, I don't know what would've. I don't think it'd be pretty. I don't think I'd be alive either - and not just because you took a knife that was meant for me. But because I was killing myself, I was running ragged and barely holding it together and doing a terrible job of life._

_I was a twisted ruin of a woman - a girl, really, a perpetual 19 year old who couldn't step a day past that terrible one, who couldn't see past tragedy and grief, who kept murder alive instead of herself._

_But then there was you._

_I don't even have a way to explain; I don't have any way to tell you about you. You. You. You surround me, you are my wall. I love you but is it any wonder? Why wouldn't I? _

_When we went to Rome and you took me to the Castel Sant'Angelo and married me in front of the Archangel Michael, I wanted nothing more than it to be real, real, mine. I wanted you to be mine. I've never wanted something so much before, never breathed it and ached for it and been so certain it was too good for me, too rich, too beautiful._

_And then, even though I was right, even though it's an impossible thing - us - we happened. We happened. I have you. I have... everything. Every impossible thing._

_So Merry Christmas and Happy Anniversary and every other holiday, every birthday to come, every new year, every day of our life together a celebration because I would do anything, anything, anything Rick. For us._

_Love isn't enough of a word to explain the fullness of us, but-_

_Love always,_

_your wife. _

* * *

Kate turned the pancake in the pan and pressed the spatula over it, mentally chastising it to hurry. Breakfast for dinner, but she was good at it. The scrambled eggs were in a bowl in the microwave to keep warm and she had cinnamon rolls - from scratch - in the oven and really?

Did it take this long to read a stupid letter?

Kate frowned into the pan and pressed the spatula harder, took a breath, and tried to remember that he'd already married her. It wasn't like a letter could change-

She gasped as two arms came around her from behind, his embrace crushing her hips into the oven door, and then he lifted her up with a growl, his mouth at her neck.

"Castle," she laughed.

He set her down and turned her around and then his hands cupped her face with that brilliant grin on his own, and she was a little breathless just looking at him. And then he kissed her, his whole heart in it, his smile still wide against her lips so that it was a bump of their teeth and his chuckle and her body pressing in close to his for more.

"My wife," he said, and it didn't sound like a question, but like laughter. "You didn't even sign it with your name."

She felt the flush climb her cheeks but his thumbs brushed her jawline and down her neck, so erotic that her pulse jumped. His hands pressed into her spine and drew her into him, and she caught her breath.

"Well, I am your wife," she murmured, barely able to find words.

"I'm in love with us too," he said suddenly, and his mouth came down to hers again. His kiss was slow, building and stoking and catching her up in his need. _In love with us._

That's what it was. She was in love with them. Not just him, but the life they'd made. She loved it; he'd created worlds with his words but he'd created this world too and she adored it.

Whatever happened next could only be better, could only be the result of them and therefore so very good, so right.

"You made me cinnamon rolls?"

She laughed at his sudden question, the curious tilt of his head as his eyes roved the counter just beyond her.

"Oh, shit, the pancakes," she groaned, spinning away from him to yank the pan off the stovetop.

His kiss landed on the back of her neck, but she ducked and he stopped, instead found a plate in the cabinet and helped her scoop black-bottomed pancakes from the pan.

"Thanks for my Christmas present," he murmured then, his hand sliding along her hip and his body close. She turned and he was smiling again, serious, with the joy still there in the back of his eyes. She loved those crows' feet, loved the way it radiated out of him in physical lines, connecting his whole face to the emotion he wouldn't hide.

"Thank you for mine," she said back, curling her fingers and stroking the side of his neck, the rough rasp of his scruff.

"I feel like I can do anything," he whispered. "When you look at me like that."

Everything expanded, everything. "Feeling's mutual."

* * *

Castle groaned and came awake, heart sluggish even though his head throbbed with his pulse. He opened an eye but the night was replete with only silence.

Something had woken him. But he had no idea what.

Letting a breath out, Castle turned slowly in bed until he saw Beckett, curled up tightly under the blankets, a hand under her cheek. Her hair was in one braided rope over her neck, curly and kinky from the shower they'd taken after dinner, and he slid his hand under the covers to skim up her arm.

She was bathed in moonlight so brilliant that he could barely believe how luminous she was. Like she was her own celestial body. The clouds must have cleared, because oh, look at how beautiful she was.

He pressed closer, scooting across the mattress until he could align his body against hers, pressing a kiss to her forehead and soaking in some of that moonlight. It tasted silver and special and she was so warm. He knew his thoughts were a little disjointed, but he was tired and it was so late and he was just so tired.

Castle closed his eyes again, sinking into the warmth of her, and from somewhere buried deep in his psyche, a voice was urgently reminding him that _something_ had woken him, something, something.

But he was already asleep.

* * *

Kate woke with a gasp, shivering, and found the covers missing and the room brilliant with starshine.

She turned over on a chattering of her teeth and saw Castle all bundled up, hogging the covers, and she scooted in to burrow into his nest, half asleep still. Her eyes were caught by the glow of neon green just past his shoulder and she reluctantly lifted her head to be met with the alarm's flashing numbers.

_4:08_

Over and over until suddenly-

It was gone.

Oh, the power had turned back on - four hours ago. And then gone out again just this second.

Kate shivered as she slid out of bed, realized the light in the room was actually from the white beaming through their window - snow falling quietly, relentlessly to the earth.

It looked like they'd already gotten about three inches and more was falling. The clouds were thick but the way the white beamed was beautiful, casting everything in an ethereal light.

But the cold was already inside the cabin.

Kate shivered and ducked away from the window, drew the curtains over the beautiful view to keep their room as insulated as possible. She shuffled over to their suitcase and tugged a sweatshirt from its depths, discovered it was Castle's FBI one. She pulled it over her head and had to sit down suddenly on the floor as dizziness rushed over her.

She ignored it and fumbled for socks, a knee getting caught in the loose sweatshirt's hem, her body canting hard towards the bed. She tangled in the sock and the sweatshirt, and her cheekbone hit the bedframe hard, making her wince, her elbow against the floor.

She closed her eyes and breathed, breathed, and after a moment the dizziness abated.

Kate lifted slowly from the floor and uncramped her fingers from the pair of socks, dragged them slowly onto her feet. She paid careful attention as she stood, but it didn't return.

She was fine now.

Maybe it had been pulling the sweatshirt on over her head after having been so deeply asleep. No way of knowing.

Kate padded out to the hallway, had to rise up on her toes to see the thermostat. Fifty degrees inside already. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest, went looking for the dog.

Sasha was curled tightly into the back of the laundry room just off the kitchen, her nose pressed under a pile of towels her father had left to be washed. Kate kneeled down on the floor and reached out a hand, but Sasha picked her head up and gave her a longing look.

"Oh, honey, why didn't you crawl in with us?" she whispered. "Come on, Sasha. Come sleep with us. No more lone wolf, puppy."

She curled her fingers in Sasha's collar and stood, half bent to get the dog up. She realized that with the dog's thick coat and her time spent in the wild as a puppy, she probably was used to this. She probably wasn't that cold.

"You'll be a nice little heater for us though. Come on," she called, letting go of her collar and stepping back into the kitchen. She patted the side of her leg and Sasha came, her nails clicking on the linoleum, her tag jingling once against her collar. Kate led the way back to the guest bedroom and went inside, turning in the doorway to make sure Sasha was following.

She slid under the covers and turned on her side to put her back to Castle, patted the empty mattress. "Up, Sasha," she whispered. "Come on."

The dog jumped swiftly, smoothly, the transition so easy that Kate barely felt her hit the mattress, and then Sasha was standing over her in the bed as if she didn't know what to do next.

"Under the covers. Sorry, wolf. Come on." Kate looped her arm around the dog's body and dragged her down; Sasha seemed willing to let herself be guided and soon she was tucked into Kate's chest.

She flipped the covers over the dog and wriggled deeper into the nest of them in bed, pushed her cold nose into the pillow. Sasha huffed like she was put out, but she didn't move away, and Kate curled her arm around her dog and closed her eyes.

Just when she'd begun to drift down, her thoughts quiet and falling like snow, Castle shuddered behind her and rolled half on top of her, his face buried into the back of her neck.

He let out a breath but he was still asleep and she was warmer this way.

She fell back to sleep.

* * *

"Power went out again," he said quietly.

Kate was huddled under the covers in the living room, half-asleep, the dog curled up with her. Castle had heard the pop of the generator as it went down and he needed to go back out there and see if he could fix it so it would last.

"Kate?"

She roused from the nest on the couch, the dog lifting her head as well. "Yeah, I heard you. Come here. I'm cold."

"I gotta check the generator again," he said. But he came to lean over the couch, brushed a kiss along her forehead. She shivered and rubbed her skin where his lips had been.

"You're freezing, sweetheart. Warm up and then go work on the generator." She'd clutched his wrist and was trying to pull him down.

"I don't want it to freeze up," he murmured, but he curled his cold fingers at her nape and squeezed, laughing when she shivered again.

"That's so mean. You're freezing," she whined. A leg came out of the blankets and kicked at him and Sasha whuffed low in her throat, almost a growl.

"See? The dog's taking up for me," he chuckled.

"She's taking up for me. Get warm for a little while; we've got the fire going in here and it's nice and toasty."

"I'm fine," he sighed, but truth was his bones ached.

"Castle. Sit. I want to huddle for warmth with my husband and catch up on the sleep I missed when you left the bed to mess with the generator."

"It was only six o'clock," he snorted, but already he was canting down into the couch. She threw back the quilt and made room for him, the dog shuffling to the other end, and so Castle sank into the warm little nest she'd made.

"Six in the morning is too early for vacation. Get in here," she muttered, straddling his leg and wrapping blankets around them. It was nice, the little cocoon made of bedding and the brilliant heat of her body over him. Her nose was cold, her fingertips, probably her toes too, despite the socks, but he nudged his chapped skin into her neck and breathed in.

She smelled like sap and smoke; she smelled like honey and almond milk and the pancakes they'd had leftover for breakfast. He wrapped his arms around her and she burrowed deeper into the couch, taking him with her so that he was practically lying down.

"You smell like diesel and gears," she said at his temple. It made him laugh, both the tickle of her lips but also that she was smelling him right back.

"Your dad's generator is a mess," he admitted. "I don't know that I can get it to work."

"It's still snowing out there too," she sighed. Her lips grazed his cheek as she pulled back to look at him. "I don't want you out there for too long, Castle."

"It's not that cold. Only thirty. I'm more concerned about in here. Gets too cold and the pipes will freeze." He lifted a hand and stroked the hair back from her cheek, watched the ripple under her skin from the cold because she couldn't hide it. "And you. You're too thin to regulate body temperature correctly. I don't-"

"I'm fine," she said quickly. "Really. It's toasty in here and the blankets and Sasha. And when you stay, you warm me up."

She had witchery in her eyes, but it didn't work on him. Well, it did work on him, obviously, since she'd gotten him into the couch with her, but he was aware that she was sensitive to the cold. Not just physically, but mentally as well. After Russia.

Spikes of cold went through her, psychosomatic or not, and he tightened his arms around her thin frame, shifted to lay over her. He knew she felt better sometimes if he weighted her down, but if she got caught in a panic attack, it would be the exact opposite. She seemed to be fighting off chills though, not panic, and she pushed one of her hands under his armpit to warm her fingers.

He chuckled softly, but it was a dark thing, and he wanted to be in two places at once - here on the couch warming her up and also outside attacking that generator, doing something long-term about it.

Her fingers were still like ice. Her body was wracked in a long shudder that had her breath catching, but she pulled him closer when he moved to rise and give her room. He tilted his head back to the crook of her neck because he was tired enough to not want to see it, weary enough that he couldn't face whatever misery might be in her eyes as memories flared to life with the cold. She stroked her fingers at his nape and murmured nonsense in his ear and she let him pretend.

"I'm okay, we're okay," she sighed. "It's just a little cold."

It was never just a little cold.

* * *

"Shit," he grunted.

Kate jerked awake and he was trying to untangle his body from the nest on the couch, from her, and she sat up so that the blankets fell away.

Shit, it was freezing.

"I fell asleep," he muttered, sounding pissed. She unwound the quilt from her leg and he raked a hand over his face as if trying to wake up. "I shouldn't have fallen asleep."

"It was a hard night," she murmured, an excuse because it hadn't been. Not for him at least. And Kate had gotten at least five hours before the cold had woken her.

"I've got to get the generator up and running." He'd already moved towards the kitchen and the side door, and she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and followed. The floor was like ice, and she heard Sasha's toenails on the linoleum as Kate came up at Castle's back. He flinched and she realized her nose was freezing.

"Sorry. I'll build the fire back up. It went out. Are you sure you-"

"Holy... Kate. Look at that," he whispered.

She peered around his body to look out the door and was met by unending, resplendent white.

"It's got to be six inches," she breathed. And then the shiver wrenched violently through her body. Castle wrapped an arm around her neck and drew her against his chest, giving her some of his heat even as he pressed a cold kiss to her cheek.

"Well, we're definitely stuck," he laughed. "If I could get the generator working, it'd be kinda nice."

"Even if you don't, we'll just keep the fire going. It'll be enough," she promised, kissing him back. "We'll make s'mores too."

A slow grin shaped his face and he turned his head to look at her. "You're a good woman," he murmured.

She laughed, surprised by it, but she knew what he meant. She'd managed to take his mind off the worry over her. But he didn't need to worry. She was fine.

"Go fix the generator. But don't stay out longer than an hour, Castle. You come back inside and let me warm up those fingers."

He grinned even wider, something devilish in his eyes. "I know right where to put them."

* * *

He'd spent so long staring at the damn generator that his eyes were beginning to cross. Castle shifted on his heels and felt the ache in his knees from squatting like this, but the thing eluded him. He had no idea why it wouldn't stay on. He'd gotten it started again and again, but it quit on him within twenty minutes each time.

He rubbed his jaw with two cold fingers and reached inside the casing once more to check the belt.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

Castle yanked his hand back just in time to keep them from getting burned, so surprised by her appearance at his side. "What are _you_ doing?"

"Taking you inside before you freeze to death, you idiot. That generator's been running for ten minutes and you're still out here mooning over it."

"It'll quit again," he sighed.

"So what? We've got the fire going. Come on, Castle. You're worrying me."

And like she must have known it would, her worry over him drove him to his feet in the snow he'd dug out around the generator, made him reach out and take her hand. She shivered hard but wouldn't let him let go, instead began to drag him back through the knee high tunnel he'd made from the side door.

"Where's your coat?" he muttered.

"Inside. It was strategic on my part," she shot back, her face pale in the weak winter sun. The snow still feel in steady flakes, dusting her lashes and coating her hair, and he could see the purple tint to her lips.

"To make me come back inside."

"Yes."

"You're devious."

"Well, you're stupid. Wife's gotta do what a wife's gotta do," she growled, tugging on him harder. She was wearing shoes at least - good, sturdy boots and not those ballet slippers she'd worn on the drive down. Thank heavens for small favors.

"I'm stupid? Who came out in the snow without a coat?"

"Who's been standing in the snow without gloves or a hat just staring at a generator for the last forty minutes? Castle, give it up. It doesn't matter."

She wrapped her arm through his and he realized his skin was chapped and chilled, that his lips felt numb and his nose more like a blunt instrument. The burn was starting up in his fingers too, which meant he'd been too long out here.

"Fine," he sighed.

"Come curl on the floor in front of the fire with me," she murmured softly, her lips brushing his jaw now even as they walked. It was awkward but it felt electric in the snow, like she'd start a fire just with that friction.

"On the floor?"

"I dragged out my dad's air mattress and inflated it, put it right in front of the fire. Sasha will do her trick for you."

"Her trick?"

"She likes to jump on it," Kate laughed softly. She opened the kitchen's screen door and held it for him like he might not follow her inside. So he passed through into the kitchen and stomped his feet free of snow. Kate came in behind him and nudged him to the kitchen table, made him sit. He watched in dumb surprise as she kneeled down and unlaced his boots, tugging them carefully off his feet.

"You don't have to-"

"I think your fingers are too frozen to manage. And I want to see how frozen solid your feet are. Don't want you losing toes," she muttered. Her hair was falling into her face as she bent over his foot, and her hands were rubbing his toes hard, almost painfully.

"Kate, don't-"

"Shut up and let me do this. You're freezing and I don't want these cold toes anywhere near my calves."

He laughed, saw the laughter on her face as well. At least there was that, at least he hadn't ruined their holiday with his inability to get the stupid generator to work.

"I want s'mores," he said then, determined to lighten things. "Let's make the fire really hot and roast marshmallows on coat hangers and melt chocolate on graham crackers."

"That is what s'mores are," she murmured, little bits of humor flaking off in her voice. She stood before him. "All right. Come on. On your feet, if you can even feel them."

"I can feel them," he muttered back, but she was right. They were numb. He stood anyway and cupped his hand in her hair, swept it back from her cheek so he could look at her.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

Tenderness edged the concern laced in her eyes and he leaned in to press a cold kiss to her mouth. Her lips were cold too. "You had to come get me out of the snow. Least I can do is warm you up too."

"Warm me up," she murmured into it. "That's what I've wanted to do all morning, Rick. Why are you so hard-headed?"

He laughed, breaking his kiss to look at her, Kate so eager and wanting, and he cupped her face even though he knew his fingers were still cold and translating that chill to her. "I don't know, Kate. Good thing you love me anyway."

She closed one eye, looking at him crookedly. "Air mattress and s'mores. Come on. Make it up to me."

"Coming, love. Let me get you some chocolate."

"I've already gotten it. It's in the living room."

He laughed then and let her go, followed her to the little nest she made before the fire. She was right; this is where he should've been hours ago.


	5. Chapter 5

** Close Encounters 12**

* * *

"Where's Sasha?" Kate asked, nudging into him. She felt lazy, heat burning her from the inside out, both of them tangled up in the purple-lined sleeping bag he'd brought back from Russia for her.

"She went out with me during the Great Generator War," he mumbled. He sounded tired. "She's okay."

"She'll come to the porch, won't she?" Kate asked, lifting up onto her elbow to glance past the rise of his shoulder towards the kitchen. "Or thump the screen?"

"Think so," he breathed.

Kate glanced down and saw he was out. Gone. Just like that. She huffed a laugh and his lashes fluttered but he didn't wake. She traced the line of his mouth to the corner, down to the hard edge of his jaw, back up to his nose. He stirred, a breathy sound like snoring, and Kate leaned over to drop a kiss lightly against his lips.

"Mm, Kate," he sighed.

She grinned, _adorable man_, and brushed the hair back from her own face, tucking it behind her ear. The air in the living room was chilled again and she turned onto her other side to look at the fireplace. The fire had gone completely out. She hadn't been paying attention. Kate sighed and slithered out of the sleeping bag; she'd go look for the puppy too, since she was out now.

It was freezing out here. Kate shivered and tugged her socks up, found his FBI sweatshirt again and shrugged it on. It was chilled as well. She stubbed her foot on the brick of the fireplace, but realized there were no more cords of wood left inside.

Shit.

Kate wrinkled her nose and bounced on her toes for warmth, and then she stepped towards the kitchen. Her boots were kicked off on the floor and she had pull them on, her fingers cramping around the leather. She couldn't remember where she'd left her coat, but her gloves were laid out on the counter.

Ouch. And ice cold with damp. Kate pushed her fingers tentatively into the ends but she couldn't do it. She snagged them off and threw them back down; it was too cold in the cabin for them to dry out, but she couldn't wear them outside either.

Kate shoved her hands into the pocket of the sweatshirt and swept her eyes across the room. Coat was probably in the pile in the living room and she didn't need to go digging through it and possibly wake Castle in the process.

It'd only take a few minutes to get the wood down by the boathouse. She knew her father had already cut plenty and not even burning it all day could have dwindled their supply too badly.

Kate opened the kitchen door and shouldered past the screen, stepped out onto the side yard. The trench Castle had made through the snow had been partially refilled and when she sunk her booted foot into it, slush came in over the tops and soaked her socks.

The snow still fell, light and delicate, touching her cheeks like wet little fingers. So soft. Gentle. A promise.

Kate stood in the falling flakes and let it touch, let the spirit of snow fall over her.

She opened her eyes and breathed, released every tension, every moment of twisting doubt, all of it gone to the wonder of white.

Her fingers were cold, her breath icy, but she knew.

James would love the snow.

It was only a matter of time.

* * *

Castle groaned and came awake, panting hard at the remnant of some dream, saw Kate's baggy sweatpants, the faded knees, but he couldn't figure out why. How.

"What're you doing?" he slurred.

"Getting warm," she snorted. "Kinda."

He rolled over onto his side and rubbed his hand down his face, tried to prop himself up.

Only to realize she was tugging off her boots, a pile of wood dumped beside the fireplace, and her hair was soaking wet.

"What the hell did you do?"

Kate glanced back to him and reached out, flicked his ear. "What you were too tired to do, super spy. Don't curse at me."

He growled and sat up, scraped his hands over his face once more to wake himself up. His body felt funny, thick with sleep, but he'd needed it. He got to his knees and nudged her aside, started carefully laying the wood in the grate.

"You got newspaper-"

"Right here," she said.

"Thanks. Match."

"Lighter is faster. I'm kinda soaked."

"How did you get so wet, Beckett?"

"That's not usually a question you ask me," she mused.

His laughter barked out of him, surprised, and he turned his head to look at her. "You're right. However."

"I played in the snow with Sasha," she admitted with a grin. "The puppy's kinda ridiculous out there."

"She still out there?"

"Yeah. I couldn't make her come in. She's in her element."

Castle laughed and leaned in to kiss her nose, then went back to starting a fire. "Get those wet clothes off, Kate, and slip down into the sleeping bag. I'll come join you, warm you up, after I get this going."

She curled her ice cold fingers at his neck, making him hiss, but she pressed a kiss to his cheek, lips numbing him, and then she disappeared back into the sleeping bag.

At least he could do this. But no way was he letting her go out there again for firewood.

* * *

"No," he said again. "My turn."

For a second, she thought he was going to shove her away, but he didn't. He gripped her shoulders and physically removed her from the fireplace though.

"Castle-"

"Get in the sleeping bag. Your toes are still freezing."

"My boots got slushy," she defended.

"Because you were rolling around in the snow with the dog."

She grumbled back at him as she wriggled into the sleeping bag. But she liked watching his ass in her face as he bent over the fireplace, stacking the last of their wood. She'd only managed a handful when she'd gone out - had to unbury sticks from the middle of the pile because all the others were soaking wet - and someone would have to go out for more.

"We need more wood," he sighed.

"Not it," she piped up, laughing when he turned around and growled at her.

"I wouldn't let you out there anyway," he said, all high and mighty on her as he fed the last stick into the fire. "You'd end up spending another hour getting slush in your boots and then I'd be mad."

"Why would _you_ be mad?"

"Because those toes are damn cold, Beckett." He reached for her foot by grabbing a handful of sleeping bag, but he missed, and she laughed again, kicked out against his questing hand.

"Too bad for you that the back of your knees are so warm. A little sweaty even."

"That sounds gross," he winced, narrowing an eye at her as he sank back onto his heels.

"It's actually nice," she hummed. "Wanna come crawl in with me?"

"I should get firewood. Since you elected me."

Kate glanced to the fire burning like mad as it devoured the new wood, had to admit that wasting an hour or two having fun cuddling together meant a more miserable time when he had to get wood later. The fire then wouldn't be quite warm enough to take the edge off the chill, and she'd feel guilty for the delay.

"You should go," she sighed finally. "And maybe get as much as you can? While it's still light out. I had trouble finding wood that wasn't soaking wet, but we can let it dry off inside."

"Yeah," he nodded, moved in to kiss her cheek. A little thoughtless, a little distracted as he was already tugging his socks on. Wrapped in blankets and the sleeping bag and with the fire in the room, it was actually pretty warm in here, despite not having any electricity for the last few hours.

Castle shoved his feet into his boots and reached out to knock his knuckles into her jaw.

"Go, super spy."

"I'm going," he chuckled. She watched him shrug on his coat and wind his scarf around his neck, pull on gloves afterwards. She realized he was making a production out of it for her benefit, and not as a tease but as a reminder to dress for the weather.

"How insufferable you are," she said, rolling her eyes at him and flopping onto her back. "You big bully."

"Only because of your casual disregard for your own personal safety, Beckett. From the beginning."

"I'm not reckless," she muttered, though maybe some could say she was. For him, maybe, yes, she was reckless. "I am - trying, you know. And playing in the snow and getting a little chilled isn't the same as truly endangering myself. You know I wouldn't do that to you."

He paused at the corner of the room; he'd been about to leave when she'd had her impromptu confession. He turned and regarded her for a long moment and she let him make whatever judgments he needed.

"I know," he said finally. "You wouldn't do that to me."

"Because I love you," she insisted.

"I know that too."

She really had figured it out; she had. She was done with torturing him over her single-mindedness. She was.

"Kate."

She sat up to look at him, let him look at her. She'd stripped down to just panties and a thin cotton shirt of his, one of his omnipresent black t-shirts, and his eyes as he studied her made her want to wrap her arms around his neck and press all that overwhelming concern into her skin.

Made her want to reshape the world for him, if it would help.

But she didn't think it would. He was just going to have to figure out how to deal with it - the idea of losing her - just as she had done when he'd faked his own death. If she had dealt with it at all. And maybe she hadn't, and that was part of this.

"Kate, I love you too."

She gave him a crooked smile and watched him walk out the kitchen door.

* * *

Castle had trouble finding wood that wasn't soaked through, but he took what he could find in his first trip, trudged back through the snow that still fell and blanketed the world. It was quiet out here, the only sound his boots crunching and packing the inches tighter, and he understood why she'd been rolling around in it with Sasha, understood the allure of staying out past her limits.

He stomped his feet at the back door and shouldered open the screen, pushed past the weather-beaten wood and into the kitchen. The door needed repainting and probably a coat of sealant; he'd have to come back and do that for Jim, maybe scrounge in the boathouse and find some cans, do it this weekend if it kept snowing like this. Good indoor project.

He thought about toeing off his shoes before he traipsed mud and snow through the cabin, and he stood undecidedly in the kitchen. The wood should be stacked somewhere and he needed to get back outside and haul some more down, so he eased the cords onto the kitchen table.

"Beckett!" he called. "Got more. I'm going back out."

He turned but he didn't hear her response, didn't hear her at all actually, and something slithered in his guts.

He yanked his coat off as he jerked forward, and he hesitated on the threshold of the kitchen, heart in his throat, but she was there. On her side in front of the fire, not in the sleeping bag like he'd asked. Was she already asleep?

"Kate?"

She groaned and he raced into the living room, dropping to his knees before her, saw the bruise already rising at the top edge of her cheek.

"Kate. What the hell happened?"

Her lashes fluttered and her body stiffened as awareness returned; he glanced to the side and saw a pile of crumpled newspaper was scattered in front of the fireplace.

"Castle," she slurred, but she sat up into him. Her fingers clutched around his sleeve and then released. "Sorry."

"What was that? What happened?"

"Just - dizzy. I guess I fell."

"And passed out?"

"Don't think I was?"

"That's not reassuring, Beckett. Your cheek's busted."

"It hurts," she admitted, finally easing back so he could see her.

"Let me look at your eyes," he ground out, found his rage like a boiler inside him, red-lining. _Not her fault,_ he repeated. _Not her fault._ "Can you track my finger?"

She did and her eyes were clear; she focused and didn't wince when he dragged his finger out of her peripheral vision. "I think I'm ok. Throbs a little but I guess I hit the edge of the fireplace."

He cursed and sat down hard on his ass, head bowing as he caught a breath.

"I'm ok. You wanna get me some snow? Ice it down."

"The freezer-"

"I don't want to open the door - spoil all the food we bought."

He let her distract him with mundanities. "We should probably put that stuff outside. It's colder out there; it'll keep."

"Probably right," she smiled, winced when her cheek stretched. "But until then-"

"Shit, ice. Yes. Hold on." He scrambled back up though he was loath to let her go, and he couldn't help turning around to look at her, just in time to watch her draw her knees into her chest and rest her chin gingerly on top. She looked small and scared and it clawed at his throat.

But he had to push that down and snatch ice from the freezer; no way in hell was he getting her _snow_, and he wrapped the bare cubes in a dish towel and came back quickly. She lifted her head when he walked through the doorway, gave him a smile with just her eyes.

"Here," he breathed, sinking to his knees once more to cradle the side of her face with the towel-wrapped ice.

She took it from him, her eye squinting as the cold met her cheek. "Sorry. I really - I was feeding more newspaper into the fire and it just - hit me."

"How many dizzy spells are you having a day?" he said, realizing by the look on her face it was more than he knew. "Kate. How many."

"Really not that much. Just - two so far today but I think that's just from using up a lot of energy? Not because... it's been good lately. Not even one a week. I promise you. It hasn't been like this."

He cupped the side of her face, the uninjured side, and leaned in to softly kiss that pristine cheek. She sighed, like she'd feared his response and was relieved he wasn't freaking out, but he was. He was twisted up in knots over her.

He just wouldn't let her see it. Not when it was clear she was keeping it from him just _because_ of his reaction.

"Tell me next time. When it gets bad like this. This is stuff I need to know."

"I will," she said, a short nod. "But you're - we have enough on our plates without adding this."

"Kate, fainting is a-"

"I'm not fainting. I got dizzy. Doctor said it was anemia."

He grit his teeth at _that_, since clearly she'd been worried enough to ask the doctor but hadn't told him. "Right. Okay," he said, letting out a long breath. He wanted to punch a wall, but maybe he'd wait until the snow blanketed his every step and he was far enough from the house that she wouldn't hear how that _shredded_ him. To the core. Not knowing.

"I'm really okay, Castle. Getting there. It's just slow. And the stupid bruise - unfortunate consequence of being dizzy right near the fireplace's sharp corners."

"Stay in the sleeping bag while I'm gone, would you?" he muttered.

She gave a quick laugh, a breath of air that tickled his forehead, and then she slowly turned her mouth into his palm and kissed him. "You're actually going to leave me here alone after that? Progress, sweetheart."

"That's really not funny."

"It is, a little," she murmured, and the laughter in her voice did something to ease the knot in his throat. "Don't worry. I'll make sure there are no sharp edges near me while you traipse through the snow."

"Stay right here."

"I'll stack the wood-"

"No. Just-"

"Castle," she chided quietly. "This is not how I live my life. And it's not the woman you loved at first kidnapping, not the woman you married in Rome on a mission. And you know that."

He leaned in and wrapped his arm around her neck, had to just hold her there until the fierce thud of his heart dropped out of its gallop and into a canter. "Okay."

"I love you," she whispered at his ear. "But I'm not made of glass. I'll be more aware and - actually - I should probably eat something other than s'mores."

"I'll make you-"

"No, love. I'll do it. You have to get us some more wood. It'll take a while for it to dry out." She rubbed his back and he finally lifted from her neck, caught her eyes. She looked sad for him and for them and that wasn't what this was supposed to be about.

"I'm okay," he told her. Or he would be. He'd sink his fist into a snowbank or tear something to shreds. He wanted to shoot something, but his weapon was in the bedside table. Later. Still, he'd be okay by the time he got back.

"Good man," she murmured. Her mouth found his softly. "Be brave, baby."

"Wow, that's so condescending, Beckett."

"Whatever works."

He gave her a better smile this time and she offered him a crooked one, the dishcloth still lightly touching her bruised cheek.

"Be right back," he promised.

* * *

Beckett pressed the slice of wheat bread onto the sandwich she'd made and, as if on cue, her stomach growled in warning. She hadn't been entirely truthful about the dizziness - she felt it still, though the worst had receded to a simple gnawing in her gut - but she wasn't going to make it worse than it already was.

She also wasn't going to try to explain to him the irrational limits he placed on her when he thought things were wrong. Nothing was _wrong_; it just wasn't right. Not yet.

She took a bite of her peanut butter and jelly and sat down at the kitchen table. She'd done this first because she'd promised him to be more aware, be more considerate of herself for his sake, and she was doing that. The wood was still piled haphazardly on the table where he'd left it, but she sipped milk - another concession to soothing his worry - and she ate her sandwich first.

When her father had warned her that marriage was about compromise, and then later had warned her that marriage to a spy like Castle would mean loneliness and compromises in their family, this wasn't exactly what she had expected.

She'd expected long nights without him and knowing he was in danger but not knowing why or where or how to reach him. She'd thought to find a man at her door dressed in one of those warehouse suits telling her that her husband had gone out serving his country but that the details were classified.

Or, on the flip side, it would be Castle getting the news when he'd come back from a mission to find her apartment empty and her things being removed. Her captain taking him aside, uncertain as to what Castle's place in her life might be but knowing only that he'd had a key.

It hadn't turned out that way. Her compromises were about how much she allowed him to control her life and what amount of controlling she could live with. It was more than she'd thought and it was also less than she'd been afraid he'd need. She'd broken him of so much of that (though he still had an inordinate fondness for her in handcuffs) that when his controlling nature reared its ugly head now - she did everything in her to soothe and sublimate.

Which was why she hadn't told him about the dizziness that came over her sometimes. It was just the anemia - which might also explain why she hadn't gotten pregnant - but it wasn't life or death. It wasn't going to kill her; it was only inconvenient.

He blew in the side door with a gust of air that reminded her she was still only in his long t-shirt and panties, eating a sandwich at the table. He gave her a narrow look but she held up the second sandwich she'd made.

"For you, love."

He sighed. "I'm going to get more wood. This stuff is soaking wet, but we'll need it dry tomorrow. If the snow holds."

"I checked my phone while you were out and the weather report says all day tomorrow." She'd had to turn it off though because the battery was draining quickly. The damn CIA app sucked up all her battery life, running constant updates and checks. "How's the charge on your phone, by the way?"

Castle settled the stack of wet wood against the wall near the oven and stood up again, slipping his fingers into his coat pocket and pulling out his phone. He squinted. "Ah, it's all right. It'll last us through tomorrow."

"Mine's about dead."

"How's the cheek?" he asked, coming to stand over her. She yanked on the sleeve of his coat to make him stand down, stop being so battle ready and command mode - it was starting to piss her off, destroying her patience and every good intention to not stress him out.

"Sit, baby. You're trying to take my power," she muttered, kicking out the other chair for him with her foot.

He choked on something like a laugh and she glanced up at him as he sat down, obedient to her. She handed him his sandwich and he took it, shaking his head. "Your power?"

"Business class in college talked about negotiation techniques and strategy. Where I got a lot of my interrogation skills, actually. The idea that you never let the person you're questioning or in negotiations with have the power. You keep it with you."

"How was I taking your power?" he said, finally chewing a bite.

"Standing over me while I'm sitting." She waved her sandwich towards the living room. "Especially after something like that. When you came down on the floor with me, you became my equal in power. But when you touched me first - you stole mine."

"Does that bother you?"

"Sometimes," she shrugged. "Mostly something I think about in the box. Or on a mission cultivating a contact."

"You have more power over me than I-"

"Not about that exactly," she protested. "Not _over_ me. God knows you're the most important thing - that this is worth anything, risk anything... what I mean is, having the power to act, to do, to influence or win or be. It's different. It's subtle, but it's different."

He ate another bite, swallowed quickly as if he had something to say. She waited on him, nudged her glass of milk in his direction. He took a sip and nodded. "I see that. The power over the conversation. Power to change things."

"Yes, that," she sighed. "In an interrogation, I never ask questions I don't already know the answers to. I don't sit at the table if he's a suspect I'm trying to overpower. Or... if I want him to think I'm just some dumb cop, a federal agent who barely passed training, then I sit down with him, slump a little, let him think he has the power."

"This is fascinating," he murmured. "The psych courses and the training never really talked about it like that. But even with us, between us, I get it. I see that I do that."

"You're a natural," she said dryly. It wasn't exactly a compliment. "I guess that makes me more aware of when you're doing it. You like control, baby, and so do I. And we've worked on that before in therapy, so-"

"I'll let you drive us home," he offered, giving her a slow smile.

"Uh-huh. You'll let me."

He laughed. "Right. I see. Fine. Whoever beats the other one out there."

She glanced to the window, watched the flakes still falling. Less quickly than before, but still thick. "We're not getting out of here any time soon."

"Nope. Which is why I need to bring in some more wood. Your dad stacked tons of it against the boathouse. The lake is gorgeous too."

"I bet it's iced over," she murmured, but he was already cramming the last of his sandwich into his mouth and standing from the table. She stood as well, to prove she could, and he chuckled softly.

He stretched out his hand to her, fingers wriggling, offering his touch, offering his power, so she took it with a smile, squeezing.

"All right. Proved your point," she sighed. But she was smiling. "Go be the man, get me more wood. Kitchen's getting cold again."

"It might not be so cold if you had on some pants, Beckett."

She laughed and came in close to him, enough to feel the scratch of wool against her bare thighs. Her heart raced and she really might swoon, stupid as it was. Instead, Kate leaned in and kissed his cold mouth, tasted the peanut butter and his concern until they both melted under her tongue.

When she stepped back, he sighed and rubbed a finger at his lips. "I don't know what you're saying. You definitely have all the power."

And then he turned and went out the door again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

Sasha found him as he trekked the short path to the boathouse, the lake on his left. The dog bounded through the snow in high leaps, grinning at him with her tongue out, but he ignored her.

He had to.

He needed - there had to be - he was going to rip apart if he didn't destroy something. Everything in him was still concentrated on the hot burn of grief and worry and the dog was better off on her own for now.

Castle took the axe that laid just inside the door of the boathouse, and then he found the thick chunks of wood that still needed to be split and put them on the block. He shucked his coat and scarf, gloves in the pockets so that his palms felt the cold smooth grain of the handle.

He hefted the axe over his shoulder, measured the distance with the length of his breathing, and brought the blade down. It cleaved perfectly in one chop, made that satisfying thunk that reverberated in his bones and set his muscles to aching.

Yes.

That.

The snow built steadily around him, thicker now and blinding. He didn't need to see, only feel, the axe in his hands and the resistance of the wood against him. Sound was only the deep cleft of blade in tree, the hiss of snow melting against the steam of his skin, and the grind of thoughts in his head being worn down.

Sasha disappeared back through the trees and he chopped, felt the rigid control of his body wielding the blade.

He worked at the wood, sweat pouring down his back, his abs contracting hard with every lift of the axe, his biceps cramping, shoulders bunching, the whole of his body attuned to the rhythm and bite of the blade.

She was dizzy. The wood split and fell.

She was anemic. He laid another. Hefted the axe, breathed, brought it down. She was dizzy and anemic and she hadn't wanted to tell him. Wood split and fell to the snow; she was chilled and easily tired and having moments she hid from him. So he set up another. Brought it down.

Split and fell. Wood splintering and falling and burrowing into the snow. Split and fell another. Another. Snow blinded him, kept the worst of it hidden, but there was the wood and the axe and the violence of taking it down.

And then the axe sunk deep and stayed and no matter how Castle tugged at it, he was done.

Sweat was in icy rivulets down his neck. The blade was stuck in the stump and would not move. The furious and dangerous edge of his grief was blunted down as surely as the wood itself, blisters raised in its place. They would split at the seams of his skin and run clear and then he would be fine. It would be fine.

Castle stacked cords of wood in his arms and felt the breath in his lungs like power. He had wiped every thought from his brain; he was only the man in the woods gathering chopped lengths and stacking them, one after another, again and again.

His arms were full and he still had more to get; Castle moved to the farthest end of the boathouse and then past it, let the wood drop hard to the snow-slick ground.

He heard the crack echo - sharp like a gunshot.

Too late he realized.

The lake.

The water closed over his head before he even knew he was drowning.

* * *

Kate rubbed her eyes and yawned, shivered in the draft coming in through the kitchen door. She pushed her hip into it but it still wouldn't catch; she worked at the knob to see if the cold had warped the wood.

And then she heard the dog.

Sasha howled.

Kate's skin crawled and she yanked the door open, jumping out into the snow and the path made of Castle's trench down to the boathouse. She hissed as she realized her feet were covered only in socks, and she had to hurry back inside and grab her boots, hands trembling so hard she nearly broke her laces tightening them up.

The dog's howl bit off into furious barking, tapered out into her hurt whine.

Fuck. Oh God.

Kate jerked out of the door once more and hurtled down the path towards the sound of that agony, the snow falling harder now and making the ground slick with slush.

"Sasha!" she called, her throat choking on the pound of her heart. She skidded hard on a patch of ice and slammed her shoulder into the side of the cabin, felt her teeth rattle. She picked herself up and kept going, heading for the boathouse and the echo of that howl in the trees.

"Castle!" she yelled. "Castle, where's the dog?" She was blinded by flakes as she picked her way down the sloping hill towards where she knew the picnic table rested under the bare oak tree, her feet unsure as the snow hid obstacles in soft white. "Castle! Sasha!"

The howling mutated into sharp, fearful barks that punched into Kate's gut; she slipped and slid hard on her side down the last few feet towards the boathouse. When she could pick herself up again and pushed her wet hair out of her face, she didn't know what it was she saw.

The horizon was a choppy mess of wood and ice, the harsh lines of the boathouse standing out in the haze of snow, but the wrongness of the earth made her stumble to a stop.

And then she realized.

The lake was frozen over. But the ice had cracked.

Sasha leaped at her out of nowhere, whining and barking in her face, bounding back, coming in again so that Kate dropped to one knee, but there was no blood. No wound, no injury, no-

_Castle_.

Beckett jerked to her feet and rushed towards the lake, slid to a stop when she realized she was already churning up broken bits of ice and feeling the water soak her boots.

"Castle!" she screamed.

"Beck- Beckett."

Oh God. Oh God. She saw him then, the dark smudge of his shoulders, the flex of his arm, the rest of him submerged. She immediately dropped to her stomach and flattened herself out along the thin ice that was still breaking up under the sluggish movement of the water. She was soaked in seconds but she used her toes and fingertips to claw her way across the ice to him.

"Castle. Castle. Talk to me. Castle, I need you to talk to me," she called out, her voice urgent.

"I'm. Here." His arm spasmed on the ice and his head dipped. She cried out and went faster than she dared, tried to keep away from the spiderwebbing sections of ice.

He'd made a crack just in front of the boathouse in a spot she knew was deep enough for her father's motorboat, deep enough even for a fishing trawler. She kept her eyes on the ice to make sure she wasn't causing it to fracture, and then she heard his gasp and had to look.

He went under.

"_God_ - Castle. No. Castle-"

He clawed back up, shaking his head like a dog, his jaw chattering so hard that she saw his lip was bleeding.

"Castle. Look at me. Come on, I need you to help me."

His eyes jerked to hers and darted away, came back again. His fingers were grey points against the ice and she stretched out a hand as she crawled closer.

"Slow. Slow, Beckett," he rasped, his voice sounding like ice itself.

She slowed, her head filled with the sounds of the dog whining and barking on shore, the sounds of Castle's too-slow, labored breathing just in front of her, and then his eyes met hers.

Like hopelessness.

"No," she cried out. "No, give me your hand. Come on." She stretched out as far as she could reach and the ice shifted under her, made her stomach flip.

"Beckett, go back-"

"God damn you, don't even," she hissed furiously. She eased her knee up against her ribs and slowly belly crawled, her eyes burning on his, willing him to hold on.

"It won't. Won't. Won't hold," he bit out, his lashes crusted with ice, his face bleached of color.

"Reach out for me, Castle. Reach out for me. You can do it."

She strained her fingers for him, felt her heart slamming so hard into her ribs that it was trembling the ice under her. Something cracked and they both froze; she felt her left foot puncture the surface and dip under, icy cold water immediately burning her numb.

God, his whole body was like that.

"Castle. Right now. Damn it. Right now. If you don't reach for my hand, we are _both_ going to drown."

He groaned and worked his shoulders; she could see the effort it was for him to move at all, how his limbs were dragged down by ice that formed in his very veins.

"Castle. Castle, love, please. Please. Please, don't do this to me."

He grit his teeth and closed his eyes; she heard the roar of his furious agony as he heaved his body higher in the water.

And then the tips of his fingers hooked hers. She cried out and caught his thumb, God only this thumb, and she risked the movement to crawl a little bit farther and grab his wrist with her other hand.

She had him.

She had him and-

The ice was breaking under her.

* * *

She realized she was chanting his name.

The water was licking at her belly and soaking her shirt and she only had him by the wrist of one hand and his eyes were closing and she was-

She was not going to panic.

They were not going to drown.

"Castle," she bit out furiously. "Castle, _open your eyes._"

He didn't move.

She needed leverage. She needed a way to tug him back to shore even if it she had to cleave a path through the thin ice to do it. She felt the ice shivering under her body as it began to breach, and she knew.

They had to go now.

Kate dug her left shoe, soaked through and already below the ice, into a ragged place where the crack hadn't penetrated quite yet. She felt the push of ice against the top of her foot and she flexed hard to hook her boot at the edge. She heard the groan as the lake rolled like a beast below her and she pressed her face flat to the ice to pray.

And then she drew her knee up to her chest and the movement wedged her foot hard into the hole and offered resistance. She felt the sharp ache of her shoulders straining against the weight of Castle but she dug her foot harder into the hole and leverage her knee against the ice.

It cracked.

She cursed and dropped flat again, heart pounding, glanced back to Castle. He was unconscious and heavy, his face scraped against the white frosted edges of ice. She realized it was where the waves had tried to break on shore as they froze, and the whole lake was covered in an accumulation of snow so that the wide vista before her could have been grass for all the difference she could make out.

No wonder he'd walked straight out onto it.

"Castle," she called sharply. She felt the groan of ice under her again and lowered her voice. "Castle. Come on, please. Castle, I need you to help me."

She jerked on his hand, her fingers around his wrist. He had no coat, no scarf, no hat - he must have taken them off at some point or maybe the lake? She waited until the sound of the sharp breaks ceased, and then she pulled slowly again.

This time she found something with her other knee - a ridge to the lake's ice - like drift wood had gotten caught as it froze - and she could barely dig her knee into that hump for added resistance.

This time Beckett used her upper body strength to drag Castle towards her.

She cried out as the ice broke up under the force of his body; she had to stop before the ragged edge could reach her and splinter the frozen sheet below. She panted hard against the cold and dug her foot into the hole once more, used it to anchor herself as she reached for more of Castle.

She got an arm looped under his neck, but she was afraid to pull. Afraid to damage him, afraid to break through more ice.

"Castle. Castle. Wake up. I need you to open your eyes. I need you. I need you. Come on, Castle. Damn it."

He was face down in the ice and she tried to reach past his neck for his belt, his waist, something to pull him onto the ice instead of through it. But she couldn't reach. Instead she gripped the back of his shirt and hooked her other elbow under his arm pit, took a stabilizing breath and yanked.

He groaned and the ice groaned and the world split crazy and tilted to one side.

She felt water rush in over her left side, making her gasp, and then his head smacked into hers and she moaned, jerking back as her cheekbone flared hotly with pain.

Clenching her teeth, she called his name over the sound of her own short breaths, pulled a little more slowly this time against the brutal clutch of icy water.

"Castle. Castle. Castle." She realized she was barely getting volume, that her voice was breaking with the touch of water against her skin, soaked through her sweatshirt already.

She opened her eyes and dug her foot into the wider crack, felt herself sink down to her knee in water.

Fuck.

She widened her legs, slid her right knee out and as far over the untouched portion of ice as she could.

And then she rolled slowly to the right side.

She felt the groan of ice below her but it held. Now she was on her back, her arms were tangled in Castle's shoulders and arm, and his forehead touched hers.

She didn't know what to do. She was soaked on one side, her left leg was completely numb and practically useless and her fingers burned as they cramped around his shirt and arm. She gulped back the noise of desperation that growled in her throat and panted over the ice, seeking breath. Help. A plan.

She didn't know what to do.

"Castle. I really. I really need you to wake up. I really need you to help me out here, because I think we're going to drown. Oh God."

And then she felt the ice split open under back.

* * *

She had no idea what happened next.

She'd felt the drop and shift of the ice cracking under her, and so she'd moved. She had flipped around and now found herself face to face with Castle, one of her feet dunking into the water next to him even as she got her thigh between his legs and hauled them both forward.

The splitting ice raced back to shore but she heaved them both after it, inch worming and slamming their bodies back into the delicately breaking sheet with every lunge forward. The lake morphed into shoreline the second her knee broke through the ice and she cried out when she hit the bottom hard.

But was only up to her waist.

"Castle," she yelled at him. "Castle, get up. Get up. Get _up_."

She hauled him forward again, her hands in broken fists in his shirt as she dug one frozen boot into the lake bed and half stood, half crawled over rapidly slushing breakers. The natural rhythm of waves began to saw away at the ice and she used her feet like axe blades to cleave a path through to land.

Castle slid behind her on the remnants of ice and she fell again, jarring her teeth hard and making bright flashes burst behind her eyelids. She groaned and got up again only to fall, felt the dog anxiously nudging under her arm, wriggling, her tongue and teeth.

Kate roused, realized she was passing out from cold, and turned back to Castle.

His eyes were open.

Not seeing. But open. Lips purple-black with cold. A breath wheezed out of him.

"Castle," she croaked. "Castle, wake up. Come on. I can't carry you. I can't - Castle."

She couldn't even drag him any farther out of the lake. She felt icy water at her knees where she crouched beside him and then the dog was dancing back and forth as the waves broke and ice reformed around them.

"_Castle._"

"Kate."

She jerked her hand to his face, slapped his cheek when his eyes started to close. He startled on a jerk and came forward, sitting up so hard that his forehead smacked her chin. She groaned and he gasped; she realized she was still clutching his shirt and she couldn't make her fingers let go.

"Kate. Kate," he was gasping.

"Castle, get up. I need you to get up. You have to get up."

He was canting into her; she felt her own body giving way beneath his and she couldn't - she couldn't - if she went down, she'd drown in the six inches of water with him on top of her.

The dog barked sharply and Castle jerked upright again, lashes iced together and breaking into crystal shards as his eyes flared open widely.

"Castle. Okay, that's it. Come on. Castle, get up. I can't carry you. I can't get you - have to get up and move. You have to move."

He groaned and his forehead dropped, but she felt his knees dragging through the icy clutches of the lake, felt him shifting in her grip. He got to his hands and knees and then vomited water, brackish and white. She wrapped an arm around his upper chest to keep him from collapsing down into it.

"Castle, Castle, baby, please. I need you to get up."

"Try - trying," he croaked.

She was so damn grateful to hear his voice that she could have cried.

"Can't," he rasped. "Can't find my feet."

"They're there," she gritted out.

But she realized she couldn't feel hers either.

* * *

He heard her voice coming from a long way off. He heard the sound like his head was full of snow and he opened his eyes to the beat of white.

_Castle._

The sharp bark of the dog brought his head up, eyes snapping open and he was swaying on his knees in a lake.

Kate was dragging him by his belt and the dog was pressed into his leg as if she were pushing and he felt his lungs in tatters but his knees hurt.

"Kate."

"Castle? Castle, God. You have to get up. You have to get up."

"I can get up," he said slowly, his brain sloshing in ice water inside his head. He felt his hand like dead meat against his thigh and he buckled down to his elbow before he realized he was pushing off to stand.

And then he was standing.

And falling.

She caught him with a grunt and he seemed to bounce; he jerked a leg out to catch himself and slammed into the side of the boathouse.

"Okay, okay, that's it, Castle, right here, hold on." He couldn't understand her only that the wood dug hard into his ribs and the boards seemed to catch his lungs and rip them to shreds.

"Cold."

"Oh God, baby. I know. I know. I need you to walk."

He laid his head back against the boathouse and stared up at the sky. "Can't."

"You do not get to do this to me. Not here. Not like this. Damn it, Castle. You have to walk. We need to get inside and get you warm."

"Burns."

"I know it does. Just at first, baby. Now _walk_."

He groaned and pushed off against the boathouse, felt like he was still walking out on a rolling lake. His ankle turned without him feeling it and he dropped one side, but she had him, she was yanking him forward.

After that it was like a staggering zombie race. Beckett propelling him forward even as his legs refused to cooperate fully. He crashed her into a tree at one point and cursed, shaking his head as he tried to control the numb and useless extremities.

She only breathed his name, or he could only understand his name, and she dragged him forward by his belt and her relentless, insistent demands. By the time she'd forced him up the hill, he found something like sensation had returned to his knees and he could get a better grip in his footholds.

His lungs were on fire. He couldn't breathe.

"Castle, no. Castle. Come on."

He realized he'd stopped against the oak tree and pushed off again, lurching as he hit the limit of his stride, felt himself like a drunkard slamming back against her. She held him up and kept him moving and before he could track it, they were at the kitchen door.

She crashed him through the doorway and he fell to the kitchen floor in an abrupt black.

* * *

Kate scraped her blunt fingers at her sweatpants, pushed the wet material off even as chills wracked her body. It took too many tries getting her shirt off; her hands were numb and dull instruments, unable for precision, like the effort of grasping a hem confounded her.

She tripped over her soaked boots as she moved for the living room, fed another handful of newspaper into the fire just to keep it going until she could do something about the wood. She dug through the pile of blankets until she got the sleeping bag, came back out to the kitchen with it.

Castle was still unconscious on the floor. She squatted at his side, shivering badly in soaked underwear, and she clawed at the button of his pants, jerked at the stiffening material. Her scrambled brain registered his belt - just in time - and she unthreaded it first, then went to his shoes.

But she couldn't get them off.

She pressed back tears of frustration and scrambled up again, lunging for the kitchen drawer. She yanked it open to snatch up the scissors, went back to him and stumbled over her boots again, gasped when she nearly stabbed him with the scissors's blades.

Shit. _Take a breath, Beckett._

She was shaking so hard she could barely keep her hands steady.

Kate dropped the scissors to the floor beside him and ran back down the cold hallway for the bedroom, crashing through the door and dropping artlessly beside the suitcase. It felt like her voice was frozen in her throat, but she dug through their clothes and found one of his thermal shirts, pulled it on over her head even as she fell out of her panties.

Her teeth were chattering. Her hair was soaked and making icy rivers down her neck, her fingers burned and cramped and the flesh over her thighs felt like it was tightening up, unable to move. She grabbed a pair of leggings and pulled those on as well, piled fistfuls of his clothes in her arms and turned back for the living room.

Sleeping bag. Shoes. Shit. She had to _focus._

Kate, not one bit warmer, ran back into the living room and slammed her knees onto the floor beside him, taking up the scissors. She cut the impossibly knotted laces, cut through half the tongue of his boot before she could get one off. The other came easier, and she dropped the scissors and tried his pants again.

She was going to throw up. She was going to collapse over him or cry or...

She got his pants to his thighs, shaking, having to peel the material, her nails catching in the denim. He groaned something and she jerked the pants over his knees, felt his body begin to shake.

Good, that was good. Shivering was a good sign.

"Castle?" she called, working the icy material over his calves and ankles. It was taking too damn long to get him out of the wet clothes, but she couldn't stop to try and revive him.

When she got his pants free of his feet, she crawled back up by his head, stroked her fingers through his hair. "Castle? Hey, love, come on."

She used the scissors and cut straight up his shirt, didn't even bother trying to keep it intact. She sliced open the sleeves and left the tatters on the kitchen floor.

It was a matter of seconds to unzip the sleeping bag and roll him onto it. Sweat stung her eyes, made her skin clammy and her palms slip on the material. The purple was a brilliant bruise against the grey of his face and she cradled him by the neck to keep from injuring him as she laid him in it. The zipper got stuck and she cursed, fumbled with her stiff, aching fingers as she closed it up.

When he was encased in the sleeping bag, Kate got to her feet and dragged him across the linoleum floor towards the living room.

Where the fire had gone out.

She gritted her teeth on a scream and fought the sway of gravity, lugged Castle to the fireplace. She got to her knees and pushed more newspaper into the grate, grabbed the zippo to light it. Her fingers fumbled again and again on the click wheel, the whole thing refusing her, but she couldn't quit. Couldn't quit.

It caught and held a flame and she gasped, pushed her trembling hand towards the fireplace. The newspaper burned fast, the fire licking greedily and shriveling it to black, and she realized there were only pieces of charred wood left to light.

She'd have to go out there and get wood, a few cords at least, just for now. She had to get the fire going and then she'd have to warm Castle up, his fingers and toes - God - she had to - there was no end to it.

Kate got to her feet and rubbed the edge of her sleeve over her face, stood swaying for a moment to catch her breath, battle back the fierce wave of dizziness.

Wood. She needed wood.


	7. Chapter 7

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

Castle hissed into awareness, a terrible burning in his lungs, saw Kate's face over him.

"Oh, good. Good. Hey, love," she was murmuring. "You're with me."

"You crying?" he rasped, closed his eyes again.

"No, no, open your eyes. Castle, come on. I need your help."

He fought through the black sludge and found her above him, her fingers on his face. "Hands are cold," he groaned.

She snatched her hands back, but everything burned. Everything.

"You need to get warm," she said. Brisk, clipped. Her fingers combed through his hair and he realized she was soaking wet.

"Take a shower?" he slurred, opening his eyes again to look at her.

Her mouth pinched. "No, love. Stay with me, okay? Just don't close your eyes. I need you to stay awake."

"Okay," he croaked. His throat was raw. Everything was on fire. "Hurts."

"Yeah, sweetheart, it does. Blood coming back. Keep awake, okay? Keep talking to me."

"Yeah," he mumbled, felt the drag against his eyes that must be his eyelids. "My... I think..."

"Castle."

His eyes jerked open, and she was furious. She looked so angry. "Sorry."

"No. Don't apologize - just stay the hell awake. Stay awake. Okay?"

His arms were so heavy but he realized she'd wrapped them in blankets, his feet, no. No, a sleeping bag. He was in the subarctic sleeping bag he'd brought back with them from Russia.

Shit.

"Kate," he rasped. He fumbled against the material and found a way to clutch the back of her neck. She resisted but a shudder wracked her body and let him force her down over him, her damp shirt meeting his bare chest.

The lake. The ice. She'd been in it too.

"Get this off," he said, his throat dry and awful. He pressed his palm too hard against her back trying to ruck her shirt up. "Off. Beckett."

"You're-"

"Skin to skin," he rasped, his body rattling hard as a cough seized him, lungs burning. "Skin. Beckett. Skin."

"I'm trying," she whispered frantically.

He closed his eyes, tried not to restrict her movements, tried to untangle his fingers from the cold knots of her hair.

And then she was sliding down into the sleeping bag with him, burning heat of her skin against his, the wet trail of an elbow against his side. He shivered hard and sucked in a deeper breath, fought past the urge to roll over on top of her and bury himself in all the warmest parts of her. His fingers, his nose and cheeks, the skin of his arms was stiff with the terrible ache of cold.

"Kate," he gasped.

She shifted, but no, no, not that. He snaked his arm up in a slow and agonizing dance, found her body against his.

"Stay, stay. Please," he whispered.

"Fire won't stay long," she murmured.

"You stay."

"I will. I am. I'm staying, Rick."

"Your fingers. Ice."

"Sorry, I'm-"

"No, I... under my-" He trailed off and tried to find it again. What he meant. "Fingers. Put them here. Under me."

He fumbled to find her hand and brought it to his arm, pressed her fingers tightly against his side. She shivered and lowered her head to his chest but she seemed to catch on. Her other hand tucked in under his back and the little needles of her frozen skin barely made a dent in the chill sweeping through him.

"You okay?" he grunted.

"I'm okay," she whispered against his shoulder. Her mouth pressed into his skin and he felt the chapped ridges of her lips, the jut of her cold chin.

"Warmer like this," he told her. He wasn't yet, but it would get there. Toes and fingers, he was supposed to be doing... "Can't feel my feet."

"I heated towels and wrapped them, rubbed your toes for... God, Castle, you've been unconscious for an hour. My phone's dead and I..."

"Oh."

She took in another shaky breath and removed her hands, pushed against him in the tight confines of the sleeping bag. "I should-"

"No. No, no, stay. Warm me up faster like this," he pleaded, felt his skin tightening with the cold. The burst of panic made his arms clutch around her shoulders, the press of her damp skin at her back. "Kate, please don't leave-"

"I'm here, I'm staying. I thought I should get your feet. I thought-"

"No, like this," he whispered, closing his eyes, feeling himself sink towards the deep, exhausted with the effort of holding on to her. "Just like this. Sleeping bag. It'll do the work."

She laid her forehead against his cheek and he felt the dampness of her skin, the icy tendrils of her hair, and then he realized she was crying.

"Stop, no," he murmured. "You're okay. Promise, promise, prom-"

"Hush, you big idiot," she grumbled, a bite of a kiss at his cheekbone that broke through the ache of cold. "Worried about you. You're still freezing, Castle."

But the tears had stopped. He pressed his palm flat to her spine and could feel the resistance of her bones, the sharp edge of panic receding from him. She was okay.

He breathed and closed his eyes, drifted on the feeling of icy water like a movement inside him, and he tried. He tried to stay. He really did.

But it was too much.

* * *

Kate wasn't sure how long it'd been since she'd passed out on top of him, but the fire was out again.

She slithered out of the sleeping bag and fed the last length of wood into the flames, a small one, and debated going back out for more. It was getting late and the light was fading and they'd need it all night as well. But Castle...

She turned back to him and crawled into the sleeping bag once more, couldn't face leaving him just yet. He was asleep, she thought, not unconscious. His heartbeat was steady under her cheek, a solid thump that kept panic from pushing tightly under her skin.

She had an hour at least, before she needed to go back out there, before she was forced out for more wood. She should grab as much as she could, make a few trips. The stuff Castle had gotten earlier was gone and she needed the rest of it to dry out. Already the smoke was black and thick because the wood was still wet.

She was mostly naked against him - well, she was all naked against him - skin to skin like he'd insisted. And it was warmer, hotter; the sleeping bag redoubled their body heat and made her skin sweat with it. She kept his hands on his chest and between their bellies; she could still feel the stab of cold from his fingers.

Kate shifted and pressed her thigh between his, shivered as the switch in positions bared her hip. She felt like ice where she wasn't touching him, despite the sweat, despite the close warmth and the fire. She had pressed her fingers under his back but she withdrew a hand to coast a line up his shoulder, check his ears.

Cold, but she squeezed the shell of his ear in her fist, flattened her palm against the side of his head to warm him. She found that the movement kept her fingers from stiffening up as well, and dragged her hand back down to shift to his other side.

He groaned as she moved and Kate paused, stared down at his face.

His eyes opened. A caught breath and then he found her looking at him. "Beckett."

"Castle."

"I feel like shit."

She laughed, heard the hysteria in her voice. He must have as well, because suddenly he was rolling over her, sleeping bag twisting and bunching around them. He laid over her with a sigh and buried his face into her neck. Lips so cold, cheeks chapped.

She lifted both hands and cradled the back of his head, stroked through his damp hair, scratching at his scalp. He breathed, a whuffle that sounded like their dog-

Shit. The dog. Oh, God.

She struggled under him, gasped when his cold fingers clenched too tightly at her hip. "Castle, let me go. I have to get Sasha. And some more wood. Castle. Hey, come on. Rick."

He jerked awake and pushed up on an elbow, stared at her for a second.

"Castle. I'll be right back."

She slithered out of the sleeping bag once more and when she'd risen to her feet, she heard Castle's startled breath below her.

"Fuck, you're naked."

Kate groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead, shot him a look over her shoulder. "Are you kidding?"

"God, you're glorious."

"Castle," she hissed, bending down to grab the shirt he'd tried to tug off of her earlier. She slipped into it and the leggings as well, hustled for the kitchen door in bare feet.

When she opened it, the last of the sun was disappearing from the horizon and Sasha was just outside the door, head on her paws as she waited.

"Oh, honey," she cried out, dropping to her knees and reaching for the dog's collar. "I'm so sorry. Sasha, come inside."

The dog bounded up, no worse for wear, licking her face and trying to settle in Kate's lap as if she were a small puppy again. Kate dragged her inside and got to her feet, brought her to the living room.

"Stay with Daddy," she whispered. She heard Castle grunt as Sasha jumped on him, but he looked awake enough to handle it. "Castle. I've got to get wood."

"Don't-"

"I'm fine. We need more wood to dry out overnight. I'll be right back."

"Take your phone?"

"Mine's dead. I think yours is in the lake."

"Shit."

"I'm okay," she insisted, getting to her knees and wrestling Sasha to one side so Castle could breathe. She dropped a kiss to his forehead and felt his fingers in her hair, the hiss of his breath as the movement caused him pain. "I'm okay. I'll be right back."

"Yeah," he sighed. His chapped lips scraped her cheek and she winced at the bruise from her fall earlier, but she didn't say a word.

Kate stood and found the tennis shoes she'd dug out of their suitcase, pushed her feet into them without untying the laces.

"I promise I'll be right back," she said once more, and then she stepped out into the twilight.

It had stopped snowing.

* * *

Castle had propped himself up against the couch by the time she came back inside. Something released in his chest and he took in a deeper breath, blinked slowly as the relief washed over him. He didn't try to get up and help with the wood; he wasn't stupid.

Well, he was stupid. But he'd learned.

Sasha was laying over his feet, the sleeping bag bunched around his waist. Kate came to him first, kneeled down and kissed his temple.

"You look better. Skin's still cold."

"I don't know that I'll ever get warm," he admitted.

"Let me start the fire and then we can do that skin to skin thing."

"What?" he mumbled, giving her a look. She chuckled softly and all her old strength was in the dark and solid brown of her eyes.

She moved away from him and started feeding smaller pieces of wood to the flames; the smoke roiled and disappeared up the flue, and Kate built a nice a-frame to stoke a blaze.

"That should last us for a while, if it's not too wet," she murmured, turning back to him.

Sasha's tail thumped and Castle lifted the zipped side of the sleeping bag. "Get in, Beckett. You've got to be freezing."

"Yeah, but it's like warming up next to a popsicle." She gave him a flash of teeth with that smile, but she stood up once more and stripped her shirt right over her head, her body licked with red light.

"Beckett," he growled.

She laughed and yanked the socks from her feet, peeled her leggings down slowly, teasing him. "If you can appreciate it this time, Castle, I know you're going to be okay."

"I'm appreciating the hell of out it," he muttered darkly. But he was seriously tired and he doubted he could even feel that wonderful skin if he got his hands on her.

Fingers were burning with cold, clumsy and awkward. She came to his side and unzipped the bag, slid inside with him. He sucked in a harsh breath as she straddled his hips, but then she laid her head against his chest like she needed to hear his heart.

Probably he wasn't wrong.

Castle sighed and wrapped his arms around her body, their skins stiff and having to remember how to touch, how to be together. She traced soft designs at his back and he leaned his head against the couch, swallowed hard to keep the sensations, to hold them, though his body seemed unable.

"You okay?" he murmured.

"God, if you don't stop asking me that, I'm going to kill you. I will. Don't think I won't."

He grunted, felt the laughter ripping up his lungs, part pain and part relief. "Yeah. I - still wanna know the answer to that question."

"I hate you," she growled, pressing hard against his body. "Castle. I am fine. You are the one who fell through the ice and nearly died. I need to call an ambulance. I can't even - the landline is dead, my phone is dead, I can't even-"

"No. No hospital. No." He could hear himself, how he sounded; still, he clutched her tighter. "Can't do that."

"You need medical attention. You fucking drowned in a lake. Don't tell me no."

"Can't. There's - the NSA. Robert's dead. I don't - I can't guarantee safety." Her safety. He wasn't that concerned about his own, but if he was laid up in a damn hospital bed, then he wasn't where he could protect her. "Can't do it, Beckett. Direct order."

"Fuck that. Not happening. I'm - I should walk down to-"

"Like _hell_ you are walking anywhere without me. No. Absolutely not."

She was rigid in his arms, but she didn't move away.

"I need you to keep me warm anyway," he added, not so smooth, and he heard her frustrated mutter against his chest. Her teeth bit his collarbone and he took it - he could always take it - before she gave a low curse and pressed her lips to the wound.

She wasn't tacitly agreeing, but it was a slight concession. He was right; they couldn't be public right now. Not after someone had followed her in the city, not after her PT was found dead.

"I feel like this is a little obvious here," he muttered, dropping his mouth to the top of her head and palming her back. "But I am so damn grateful you came outside."

"Dog barked."

He nudged his foot into their dog and she glanced over at him. "Sasha's looking out for me. Should've called her Lassie."

Kate snorted against his neck and lifted her mouth to graze his cheek. "I thought you were going to just... slip right under."

"I thought the ice would break and send you with me," he roughed.

She nodded, both of them struck mute by the terror that still wound around them. He couldn't help remembering the wild of her eyes as she'd stared at him across the cracking ice, the sheer determination that wouldn't be broken.

And even though he'd wanted her to get off the ice, go back and just throw him a damn branch or something, he had a singular, burning relief that she hadn't.

"You said you hate being cold," she whispered.

Well, shit, she knew anyway. "Could also say I hate you being cold," he sighed. His voice sounded terrible; no matter how much he swallowed, cleared his throat, his words scraped out like knives. "Hate you being out there too."

She shivered again and he felt the snowmelt in her hair drip to his shoulder.

"You okay?" he whispered again, couldn't help himself.

"I'm not so hot," she admitted, her body drawing up into his. Castle immediately shifted them down to the air mattress, laid his body beside hers for the warmth. She was adjusting the sleeping bag, pulling blankets in with them, and he tried to keep from tangling them both up in it.

"Oh," he said belatedly. "I see what you did there. Not hot."

"Yeah," she sighed. "It was supposed to be a joke. Kind of. Also true. I'm cold to the bone."

"Me too," he confessed. "But you feel good. Warming up."

"I think the adrenaline's wearing off," she whispered.

He palmed the back of her head and pressed his mouth to her cheek. "My hero."

She made a noise like derision, but he felt her body smoothing out next to him, easing into sleep, and he couldn't remember the last time she'd been the one to fall asleep first.

"Just want this day to be over," he whispered.

Her fingers clenched at his hip and then she was gone.

* * *

"There is absolutely no way I'm letting you outside," she threatened, squeezing his ear instead of the gentle stroke she'd intended. Castle whined and shook her off, but she caught the side of his face as she stood over him, stared him down.

"Fine," he growled. Or tried to growl. He had a wheeze to his chest she didn't like and she remembered vividly the way he'd thrown up lake water. She wished she could hear his lungs, see if they were clear.

"I'll be right back," she promised. "Sasha's coming with me. I have a flashlight. Just going to get the last of that wood you chopped, all burly and strong."

"Stop trying to flatter me," he mumbled. She stroked her fingers at his cheek, the broken blood vessels where his face had dragged against the ice. Her whole body ached and she didn't know if it was from cold or the way he looked.

She lifted up again and moved away from him, patting her thigh to get Sasha's attention. The dog came and followed her out the kitchen door and into the snow.

It was quiet again. All the violence from this afternoon had been blunted by the layer of snow that shrouded the earth. Overhead the sky was muted grey with clouds so that not even the moon shined through. Kate turned on the flashlight and stepped carefully through the fresh snowfall in the trench alongside the cabin.

Sasha slunk ahead of her, the dog's fur ruffling in the wind, and her nose lifted to scent. She had the look of the wolf about her tonight, ears perked and teeth bared, her steps light and graceful. Kate wished she felt half as confident as the dog looked.

She thought Castle was doing better; he'd been sitting up for most of the evening and she hadn't needed to force feed him dinner. Peanut butter again, but she'd also cracked open the fridge and pulled out their leftovers, both of them eating the chicken cold.

She was worried her father would try to contact them and be unable, worried he'd try to push through the snowstorm to get to them, worried that he wouldn't. If he did, she could get a second opinion about the whole _no hospital_ rule that Castle had laid down. If her father didn't, then at least he was safely indoors.

The dog barked twice and Kate went still, scanning the treeline, but all she saw was the stark outline of the branches tossed by the wind.

She stooped over and grabbed a piece of wood, more of the stuff Castle had spent hours out here splitting before thoughtlessly walking straight out onto the lake.

It just - it didn't seem right. That wasn't like him. And while she was surprised by how quickly he was already bouncing back, the rattle in his chest and the persistent cold in his fingers made her think too much. About how he normally healed so fast, how he didn't usually need as much sleep, how he would never have walked out onto the lake for a damn piece of wood.

She had to lean against the boathouse to keep from shaking; she was so tired. Dinner hadn't helped much; her energy was shot to pieces, but after this she could sleep. She could crawl into the sleeping bag on top of the air mattress and have him lay over her like a blanket and sleep.

Sasha barked again and Kate lifted to scan the woods. She still saw nothing out here, and she hushed Sasha with a low voice, kept stacking wood in her arms. After a few minutes, she realized she felt eyes on her, greedy and watchful, and she stood up slowly, her breath catching.

Human or animal?

Sasha hadn't barked again; in fact, the dog was rolling in the snow and then standing up to shake it off, oblivious.

Kate turned slowly as her scalp prickled, the wood in her arms a poor weapon.

And then she saw Castle stepping out of the cabin, his shoulders hunched against the cold, his feet sluggish and uneven.

She was going to kill him.

* * *

"The dog barked," he protested again.

She looked furious, absolutely furious, and as she threw the wood into the corner of the living room, he had the intelligence to shut his mouth.

But Sasha had barked twice - their normally quiet, reserved wolf - and she had just told him how it was Sasha's barking that made her go outside for him. She couldn't be angry at him for that, for the not knowing; because he could see in her face how ragged she was with it too.

Castle decided that sitting down was probably his best bet, so he sank back to the air mattress in relief, his bones aching and his joints swollen. His fingers were still numb with cold but she seemed to be able to tell despite how carefully he tried to keep it from her. He flexed his fingers and stared at them in the light from the fire, listened vaguely to the sounds of her irritation.

His thumb was strangely purple. His fingertips were blanched. He didn't think that was a good sign, but he kept flexing his hand, working what he could, trying to get the circulation back. His heart rate was lower than average, he knew, so maybe that was part of the problem.

Wild guess.

"Fingers still numb?" she said then.

He sighed.

"Castle."

"Yeah," he admitted. "I tried putting them in my mouth to warm them up..."

"Worked in Paris," she murmured softly.

"Not working now," he confessed. He hated to let her know, and he braced himself for the flash of worry over her features.

But maybe she was too mad at him for that. She only set her jaw and finished laying out firewood to dry, and then she dusted off her hands and sat down beside him on the air mattress.

He waited for it, but it never came. Instead, she took his hand and cradled it in her lap, used her fingers to start slowly massaging his wrist. He felt the swollen tissue moving under her touch and then the blood swirled painfully to life.

"Ah," he sighed.

"Working?"

"Think so."

"Did this to your feet while you were unconscious and scaring the crap out of me."

He laughed, but it wasn't funny. She manipulated the muscles and tendons of his palm and knuckles, and it felt like the blood followed her touch, magnetic and seeking. Sensation burned through his hand, and he couldn't help flexing in her grip. She brought his palm to her mouth and kissed his skin and the fire flared hotly against her lips.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he gruffed. His throat hurt, his lungs still burned.

"I know you didn't," she said back, kept her hands around his. She rolled his veins between his bones and her fingers, and feeling popped sharply into his thumb. Like magic.

"I didn't see the lake - the snow made everything the same and I'd split a bunch of wood and was just trying to gather it up."

"I know."

"The waves made sheets of ice and I'd been crunching through it all morning; it didn't feel or look any different."

"You're protesting a lot," she sighed, and her head tilted to look at him. "You know."

"I... know," he admitted.

"I think you should find a doctor," she said quietly.

"Not a CIA doctor, you mean," he answered. And between them still was that darkness, that lack. "Do you think... it's because of me?"

"No," she whispered. Her hands clutched harder around his. "No. It's not you. It's just me."

"It's not you," he rasped. "You're-"

"Still have anemia," she said darkly. "Still not - regular. I have issues, Castle, obviously. But I would like for you to find someone we can trust. Especially since you just got dunked in the lake."

And he heard in her careful tone exactly what she wasn't saying - that he should have never been distracted enough to go under, never should have been tired and angry and uncontrolled like he had been recently. It should never have happened.

"I'll find a doctor," he said finally. "I'll - I'll use the alias." The one he adopted Sasha with, the one they married under. Too many people knew that identity already, but he'd have to carefully go outside his known circles.

"Can I ask Lanie?" she murmured. "She'd know someone."

"Okay," he agreed. Her fingers against his were pale, but she let go of him and reached for his other hand. He gave it to her, watched her work, felt the fizzle in his fingertips. "What if it's - something he did to me?"

"Castle, we can't think like that."

"What if the regimen... I don't know. I don't..." He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, a black pit widening inside him. But it'd been there a while now, had been growing like a beast, ever hungry. He was afraid. He was afraid he'd gotten this far and come so close and everything would be taken from him because he was - in essence - still the boy on the side of the road, no one coming to pick him up.

Her hands came to his shoulders and pulled him down into her; he pressed his face into her neck as her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"Please don't," she whispered. "Please. Just one step at a time, Rick. Okay?"

"Okay," he rasped.

"I'm getting better and now I just want you to be healthy too. I don't want... we won't worry about having a baby until we straighten us out."

"But I-"

"It's not you," she said insistently. "Stop. This isn't the end of the world; don't be melodramatic. It's just some tiredness."

"Okay." Or at least, he tried to say it. But his throat burned and the word was mangled. He lifted his head to clear his throat and rubbed at his neck.

"And maybe a cold," she chuckled. "You did just fall into a frozen lake."

"It wasn't as frozen as all that," he mumbled. And then smiled at her because it was supposed to be funny - since the ice hadn't held his weight anyway - and she smiled back, stroking his shoulders and down to his biceps before she took his hands again.

"Let me get the blood flowing, baby."

"Can I lie down in your lap?" he sighed. He gave her his best sad face - it was mostly in the eyes - and she melted. All that strong and careful concern for him flowed right out into tenderness.

"Of course," she murmured, pulling him down to her thighs. He grinned and pressed his face to her stomach, nipped at her skin through her shirt. She gasped and laughed, twisted his ear.

"Ow, ow, woman." He reached up and rubbed his ear. "Ap-"

"If you say apples, I will hit you."

He laughed again and squirmed down into her lap, holding up his still tingling hand. "You still have to do this one."

"You're insufferable."

"I know. And yet you still love me. What does that say about you?"

She leaned over him and kissed his forehead. "It says I'm very lucky," she whispered.

And then she pressed her hand over his mouth and wouldn't let him say anything more.


	8. Chapter 8

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

Beckett woke early, as usual, and the power was back on. It was roasting inside the sleeping bag, though the fire had gone out. She'd set a mental alarm for every few hours, to wake and tend it, but around two or so, she'd let it go out completely.

The sun was brilliant and beautiful through the window, and Kate wriggled out of the sleeping bag slowly, trying not to wake him. He'd been heavily asleep for hours now, and when she rose, he didn't stir.

She made her way to the pile of clothes she'd dragged from their suitcase, tugged his thermal shirt on over her head, realized the necklace was still on. She lifted her hand to it, stunned by its presence despite the ice and the lake. The chain was so light, she hadn't noticed she still wore it, and she'd been so concerned about Castle she hadn't bothered to pay attention.

She could have lost it on the lake. But it was here, safe.

Kate found her leggings and pulled them on, the socks that had finally dried, and she headed into the kitchen to figure out breakfast. The fridge hummed with life and she opened it up, started sorting through things to make sure nothing had spoiled.

She was startled by a hand at her waist and turned around to find Castle in just his sweatpants, bare chest, looking scruffy and tired and beautiful in the weak winter light.

"Morning," he mumbled, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. And then he kept on going, pushing past her for eggs. "Power's on. Let's feast."

She smiled and patted his bare back, muscles that rippled under her hand and held his body together. "Morning. Power's back, yeah. All that firewood I hauled for nothing."

"Whoops," he laughed. His laughter turned into a rumbling cough, but he waved her off and turned his head aside, moving to the stove. "I'm good."

She watched him a moment, but he was fine. Steady and strong in the kitchen, warmth radiating from him. She leaned in and kissed his bare shoulder, pressing her forehead briefly to his skin, and then she left him to it.

"I'm going to get a hot shower. Have breakfast ready for me when I get out?"

"Is that your way of telling me you're showering alone?"

She laughed and turned in the doorway. "Love, that's up to you."

He glanced to the frying pan and the open carton of eggs, then he looked back at her with a slow grin. "Who needs breakfast?"

"Well, I do," she muttered, even as he came for her, wrapping his arms around her and claiming her mouth. She made a frustrated noise as he stole her words and he pulled back only long enough to dismiss it.

"Whatever. You know you'd rather have shower sex instead."

"All I really want are scrambled eggs and toast. Some coffee. Oh, coffee."

"Liar."

"Not really," she admitted with a little grin. "But if you hop out before me, you can still make me coffee."

He narrowed his eyes at her, but his hands went to her hips and turned her around, pushed on her to go. "It's got a timer, so I can start that now. Won't have to hop out early at all."

She laughed as she went down the hallway, called back to him, "That's why you're the super spy. You think of everything."

* * *

Kate held her coffee mug in one hand and kicked her booted feet through the snow, searching for his coat. He said he'd stripped it off before he'd gone into the lake, and while she didn't love the idea of him out here looking for it, she loved even less the fact that he was shoveling out their car.

Demanding bully.

Kate took another sip of hot liquid and let it burn all the way down, clearing her head and sinuses. She felt aches in places she hadn't last night, her shoulder was seriously jacked up, and her knees were livid with bruises from hitting the bottom of the lake. Or maybe the ice, hard to tell.

"Kate?"

"Back here," she called out, lifting her head to see him at the top of the rise near the snow-blanketed picnic table.

"You find it?"

"No. Why can't we just get you a new one?" she yelled.

He winced, she could tell even from this distance, and then he started his slow way down the gentle roll of the back lawn. She told herself to stop worrying and pointedly didn't watch, sipped her coffee and wrapped her fingers around the mug to keep them warm.

When he got to her side, he put his hands on his hips and surveyed the area near the boathouse. "It had my phone in it. And the notebook."

Desolation swamped her before she even knew it was coming.

"Whoa, Kate," he muttered, drawing her against his chest, coffee sloshing. "I'm so sorry. I was keeping it close and I - I shouldn't have taken off my coat. I should have-"

"No, no," she rasped, pushing away from him, pressing her sleeve to the coffee stain she'd splashed on his shirt. "I'm glad you did. Because the coat might have drowned you."

"It's around here somewhere," he said quickly. "Just buried under six inches of fresh snow."

"We'll find it," she agreed, pressing her coffee mug into her chest to breathe.

"I wish I hadn't-"

"Stop," she said, nudging her head into his shoulder. With just snow boots on, she'd lost the advantage of height that allowed her to stare him down and keep his more ridiculous drama in its place. "It's not about the notebook. It's just - reminded I almost lost you, Castle. And the notebook would've been gone as well. Stupid."

His arm slid around her shoulders and tugged her again, more coffee sloshing out and staining his shirt, and she huffed at him, held her mug away.

"Why I wear black," he muttered. "Stop moving away from me. Come here."

She laughed as he wrestled a hug out of her, but she pressed her nose into his neck where they both were cold from being outside so long. He petted her hair, pressing it flat - a hopeless cause - and then he ducked down and kissed her.

"Mm, coffee."

"You could have gotten your own."

"I think I just did."

"Focus, super spy. Let's find your coat."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Castle cradled the detective's notebook in his hands while she drove; his coat was stiff and melting on the back porch, hung over the railing, and his phone was kaput. They were driving into the one-stoplight town to find him a cell he could wipe and ghost.

"I'm glad it wasn't damaged," she said, reading his thoughts.

"I'd heard somewhere that if a book gets wet, you can put it in the freezer to dry up the moisture."

"Essentially it's been the freezer all night?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Yeah. The pages feel strange, but they're okay."

"My dad called."

"Oh? Was he worried?"

"No," she laughed. "But I told him what happened-"

Castle groaned and pushed his head back into the seat. "You told him? Kate."

"It's not like he thinks less of you," she muttered, taking the right hand turn onto the country highway. "He's concerned you have frostbite."

"I don't have frostbite."

"He said for me to pay attention to your breathing."

Castle closed his mouth.

"I thought so," she muttered.

"Just a little cough," he told her, putting some conviction in it. "Really."

"When have you ever had a cough?"

He didn't answer and she snorted at him, but her eyes stayed glued on the road. Which was good, though it looked like the snow plow had just cleared the highway and the way was relatively clear.

"Okay," he conceded. "I don't remember ever having a cold before. Maybe when I was really small. I think Mother took me to the theatre and I stayed bundled up near the radiator in the leading man's dressing room."

He heard a sound from her and glanced at her face; she looked pleased. He wasn't sure if it was because she knew she was right or if she just liked hearing good stories about Martha.

"Do you know if you've been vaccinated?" she asked suddenly.

"I - what. You mean like MMR and that kind of thing?"

"Yes."

"I was told so."

"You don't remember it?"

"When do you normally get that stuff?" he asked, rubbing his jaw. "Because I assume that's when you're a kid. I don't have vivid memories of much, you know. I think a shot? yeah, that wouldn't pop on my radar. I got a lot of shots."

"I had an MMR booster when I was about twelve or so," she said quietly. "Bad batch or something when I was smaller. Or so they said."

"Ooh, getting all conspiracy theory on me, Beckett?"

She laughed and shot a quick, amused glance his direction. "Perhaps. It does seem odd. I think, if I remember right, that an age range of kids had gotten an MMR vaccination that required this booster. So it was mostly kids around my age."

"Could be true. Could be a nefarious CIA plot."

"The CIA didn't do this to you," she said quietly.

"No, but my father did. And they didn't stop him."

"Your voice still sounds raspy."

"I think you mean sexy," he panned, willing to change the subject.

She laughed again and shook her head. "Stop distracting me with that sexy voice. I'm trying to drive in some pretty treacherous conditions."

"It's not that treacherous or else I wouldn't have let us go anywhere at all. Besides, I don't need my voice to distract you."

He pressed his fingers to her knee and she grabbed his hand, squeezed too hard. "I'm warning you."

"What're you going to do to me?" he scoffed.

"Make you drive home. See how you like it."

Oh, that sounded fun.

* * *

It wasn't like they intended to have these conversations this weekend. She hadn't anyway. But once they started, once the door was cracked, it was so easy to open it wider.

They had dinner in town, fast food, more stuff that Castle never ate but always seemed willing to try for her. French fries and burgers, and though they passed on milkshakes, Kate had root beer just for that spicy-sugary kick of foam and phosphate. Castle sat on her side of the booth like a lovesick boy, and their shoulders brushed every time they took a bite.

She would never admit she liked it.

"Are you worried?" she asked him.

"Yes. Of course," he sighed. "I never thought it would be this difficult."

Kate laughed, short and amused, but she knew it was mostly to flow with the mood he'd set at the table. Burgers and fries meant happiness and a relaxed day, meant the normal world he'd been denied. "Baby, this is us. When is it ever easy?"

"That's true," he muttered. But the darkness in his tone was a play for her sympathy, and she gave in to it, leaned in and kissed his cheek softly until she felt his sly, pleased smile spread.

"Don't put that pressure on yourself," she murmured. "And I won't either. Or... I'll try not to. We know where we want to be, Castle, so we'll work on getting there. I want us to enjoy what we have now."

"Yeah," he gruffed, his hand sliding across her thigh under the table. "You're right. Just the two of us."

She smiled, relief trickling down her spine like ice melting. "Yeah, the two of us. That's okay, isn't it?"

"It's more than okay. Kate. You're all I need."

But not all he wanted, right? He wanted more - not just because he loved her and wanted things for her, but because he'd been denied so much. Because everyone had failed him.

Until now. Wouldn't be her.

She kissed his cheek again, but he reached up and caught her jaw, held her away for a moment. "Kate. You know it. Tell me you know. You and me."

"I know," she said, felt her neck flushing with the intensity he leveled on her. "I do. It's the same for me."

"Good," he rasped, his voice dipping again as he let her go. "Good. So we focus on what comes next."

"Like the NSA following me," she muttered, sighing as she faced her burger again.

"Like Robert in the East River. That one? I don't like. It feels like two different agendas. One is serious and the other is just blowing smoke."

Kate pushed a french fry into her mouth and felt things stirring, that sense of having a puzzle and needing to make it fit. She loved s'mores and downtime with her husband, but God help her, she loved this too. Maybe more.

She was glad he'd brought it up first. "Two agendas. Okay. Same person though?"

"I don't know. We've had pretty clear evidence that the NSA is in league with your senator," he said. Castle had settled back in the booth now, his burger utterly demolished, and he laid his hand at her back and stroked along her shirt, thinking. "So if they're following you in New York, it's a safe assumption it's because of him."

"We started in on him again. We have a deal, but we both know it's tenuous at best."

"We did, but we've been extremely careful. Malone knows what he's doing, so it's not like Bracken could've figured out that we were following his electronic trail again."

"Okay," she said slowly, pushing a french fry through the ketchup on her plate. "So you think the NSA is connected to someone else?"

"Always possible."

"But not _likely_, Castle," she shook her head. "Look, it's the basics of detective work. Whatever is most probable is usually what's happened. There aren't a lot of original crimes out there."

"No," he agreed. "But there are new criminals. What's to say it's not someone from Vadim's organization?"

"Because Foley came after you here, you mean, and you think that might be happening with Vadim. No. It doesn't fly. We wrapped that up tight and Vadim - while being an asshole of the highest order - wasn't exactly smart. Rick. Seriously, none of his guys would inspire ocean-crossing vendettas."

"All right," he gave. "What about Black?"

She dropped the fry and brushed the salt from her fingers to give herself a second; she wanted to think. To actually consider it rationally.

"Okay," she said slowly. "That's... possible."

"Has the motive," Castle ticked off. "And the opportunity-"

"He's in a holding facility. North Africa. How-"

"Love, if you think a holding facility is going to keep down a man with that many favors and that much blackmail material, you-"

"Fine," she interrupted. "Opportunity. Resources?"

"That's iffy," he admitted. "With the NSA in Bracken's pocket, I'm not entirely sure he could muster it."

"But Robert," she said quietly. "He was the physical therapist I had at Stone Farm - which Black set up."

"No." Castle's hand at her back brushed up her spine and tangled in her hair. "That was me. I arranged it."

"Robert as well?"

"He's assigned to the Farm in a rotating schedule. So no, I didn't know he'd be there."

"Who assigned him to me after Russia?"

"Automated from a pool - same thing."

"So you're telling me wrong place, wrong time?" Kate put her head in her hand and closed her eyes. His fingers stroked at her nape under her hair, his body warm at her side. At least he was warm, alive. At least there was that.

"The relevant question now - how did Black get access to that information? The automated schedule."

"You're awfully assuming," she murmured, lifting her head from her hands. "I don't know that I'm convinced it was him."

"He's playing a game with me," Castle said, and she saw that the despair welled up in his eyes again.

Kate shook her head. "Remember when you said that you were surprised Bracken hadn't made a move now that Black had been arrested?"

"Yes."

"Maybe he _has_." Kate took a breath and plunged into it. "Maybe you give your father too much credit. He's not the devil; he's just a man. Bracken has the motive, opportunity, and definitely the resources to be the one pulling the strings this time. And just because he's coming at us on two fronts - messing with our heads by having me followed but also trying to get someone close to me - doesn't mean it can't be him."

"The m.o. isn't the same in both cases."

"But it _is_," she insisted. "He murdered my mother, Castle. And he had a guy set up across from my apartment listening to every word I said. He silenced my mother to keep it quiet and he kept tabs on me my whole life. Just to be sure I couldn't come after him."

Castle only watched her, as if assessing. She couldn't be emotional about this; she had to make him understand.

It wasn't Black they needed to handle right now. Black was a beast for another day.

"He set up a network of brutal soldiers to do his dirty work across the world, Castle. He had my mother murdered in an alley. And then he came after me when it looked like I had a real chance of stopping him. When I had _you_. He won't hesitate if he thinks we can bring him down."

And she didn't want Castle on _his_ radar.

His hand slid down her back once more and he sat up straight in the booth. "I don't trust Black. But I do trust you. If your instincts tell you it's Bracken, then we'll narrow our focus to him."

She let out a relieved breath and reached for his hand, squeezing. "Thank you."

"I don't think you'll be thanking me at the end of this."

"So long as I have you, I don't care."

* * *

Even though Castle had intended to have a nice Christmas-type weekend with her, they spent the rest of their time hashing out new plans to go after Bracken. His cough was persistent enough to make Beckett force him to _nap_, like that was something a forty year old spy should ever be doing, but it brought her with him at least.

They laid in bed together and talked, mostly, and called it napping. He let his hands roam over her body, like it was thoughtless, and she squirmed against him but kept her conversation firmly grounded in tactical points and avenues of investigation. He felt her excitement though, knew she felt it in him as well, and when he pushed his palm under her shirt and the heat of her back branded him, he couldn't help rolling over on top of her, bearing her down into the mattress.

"We could turn the tables," he murmured then, watching the way her eyes dilated as their gazes locked.

"How?" she whispered. Her mouth parted, tongue in shadows and tormenting him with its elusiveness.

Castle dipped his head and breathed over her lips, lightly touched his mouth to hers. "Set up a listening post across from his apartment."

"Secret Service would-"

"Ah, but Secret Service is on our task force now. They'd get us clearance."

"We couldn't really do that. It's on US soil," she argued, but her body kept opening to him.

He rocked his hips lazily into her and loved the little gasp that burst from her mouth. "But they can do it," he offered. "And I have the authority to get it set up. At least for a little while."

"You could do that?" she said, breathless, a little restless now too as her hips moved under him, her hands stroking his back. "Baby."

"Of course. The Russian terrorists, remember?"

"No?"

"Sure you do," he hinted.

She laughed then, a bubbling sound, and her body rose to meet his with her laughter. He grinned down at her and she tsked at him. "You planning on fabricating evidence, super spy?"

"Do whatever it takes. But Malone has been tracing the money - and you know the banks are all in it. It's like Six Degrees of Russian Terrorist in some of these places. I'm certain Bracken's used one of them. It's only a matter of connecting the dots."

She groaned under him and her arms snaked around his neck. "That's so hot. Why is that so hot?"

"My super spy self?" he laughed. His mouth forged a trail down her neck to find that warm, close skin.

"Everything," she sighed. "Your plans and your mouth and - and - those fingers. I'm so glad you didn't get frostbite, baby. I'd miss those hands."

He laughed again, but he felt the catch in his lungs as he struggled for enough air, buried his face in her chest to keep her from hearing it too. She hummed and arched under him, and he figured they could be done with plans and talking and all that.

He had better uses for his mouth.

* * *

She heard him coughing all night.

It wasn't like she slept much these days anyway, but being woken from sleep to hear the nasty catch of his lungs and the wheeze of his breath made her hyper-alert. She was awake.

Kate opened her eyes and studied him in the moonlight spilling through the blinds. A line of soft silver drew down his face and he lifted a hand when felt her awareness on him.

She took his hand and came closer, drawing his arm to her chest. "You sound bad."

"I'm okay," he said. His voice no longer rasped so badly, but she couldn't help remember how much lake water he'd swallowed. "Lying down just... made it all settle or something."

She tilted her head to kiss his shoulder.

"I'll go sleep on the air mattress," he whispered. "I'm keeping you up."

"No," she sighed, kept a grip on his arm. "I'll sleep less if I don't know for sure you're breathing."

"That's not funny."

"It's true though."

"Be brave, Beckett."

"Now _that's_ not funny," she muttered, flicking her fingers at his neck, closest she could get.

He laughed and it rumbled badly, but he turned onto his side and drew his arm away from her. He was moving away.

"Castle-"

"You need to sleep. Every time I cough, I wake you up. I'll be fine. I'll probably lean against the couch and keep myself propped up."

"But I-"

"I'm serious. It's not fair asking me to be brave of your recovery if you can't do the same," he said. But it sounded like a growl and he got out of bed, bringing his pillow with him. She watched him leave the room in the moonlight and realized she'd seen this before, they'd done this before.

When he'd been stabbed, it was this very room, and a night like this that she'd hurt his feelings so badly because she couldn't trust him to know if he was truly fine. In essence, she couldn't be brave.

Kate groaned and pressed her face into the sheets, angry and sad and wishing he didn't want to save her quite so much.

A sleepless night listening to him cough still meant _him_. And she'd endure the cough if it meant him; she'd gladly take the hit.

She realized, futilely, she was still punishing herself for making him go outside for wood yesterday and starting the whole thing.

Shit. Maybe she really _did_ need more sleep.

* * *

Castle felt the hard edges of the couch against the bottom of his shoulder blades and pressed the bones out to make wings, hooking against the lip of the couch frame. His chest felt tight and thick with mucus and he wondered if this was always how a cold was supposed to feel.

He'd had a cold once as a child, but what he remembered of that time was suffocating heat and his mother's cold fingers perpetually on his forehead, only to have her hand wipe gingerly at the blanket swaddling him to dry off his sweat from her palm. And something about a headache.

His head didn't hurt now, though recently it had. And he could taste at the back of his throat something that was green. Like chlorophyll green. As if the lake swam around inside him.

He was tired, but every time he fell asleep, he slouched just enough to collapse his chest and make his lungs fill and then he woke coughing. He remembered Eastman getting sinus infections in the summer after long flights, and his old partner had often talked about having to sleep in the armchair, propped up.

Castle was just beginning to think about relocating to her father's lazy-boy - usually off-limits - when he heard the sounds of bare feet over the wooden floors. He glanced up and found Beckett heading for him in the darkness, her legs shockingly white in the moonlight. She was only in that black t-shirt of his that she'd stained coffee on this morning.

"Kate," he graveled, but she was relentless and he was too tired to muster any authority.

"I can't sleep without you anyway," she sighed and sank down on the couch behind his head.

He glanced back and saw her draw a blanket from the foot, drag it over those beautiful legs. She pillowed her head on her arm and watched him with tired eyes. Her hair fell slowly over her cheek and she didn't move to brush it away.

"What happens to you when we're not in the same city?" he murmured. "What happens when I'm in Paris at the safe house and you're in Russia?"

"Wakefulness." She gave him a smile but it wasn't that amused. "No, I sleep. I just sleep better with you."

"I never figured you for clingy."

She didn't even look hurt; she just looked anxious.

Castle sighed and turned his head back to stare at the fireplace, putting his skull against the couch. When he'd been stabbed by Coonan, he had seen this side of her in the way she haunted his hospital bed, his recovery faster than she'd expected. She had kept urging him to take it easy, slow down, but he knew his body better than she did and-

The regimen. Right? It had been the regimen that had healed him so quickly after the knife wound. He'd been at the CIA and in his father's care then. And now...

She was worried. Because he had fallen through the ice.

He closed his eyes on a sigh that - even still - caught in his lungs. "Kate."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

Her fingers came to the back of his head and then stroked through his hair, slowly, soothingly. All the apology accepted that they needed between them.

"You should sleep," he said softly, drawing a deep breath into his lungs.

"Tell me stories," she whispered, fingers dragging along his scalp. Felt good. He was tired but every time he fell asleep, the cough woke him again.

"Stories about what?" He tried to recall James from the dream, the boy climbing through the window like a monkey.

"Stories about you," she sighed.

"About me?" He turned his head slightly and her fingers trailed against his temple.

"What about when you were in Afghanistan?"

"Where I met Coonan."

"No," she sighed. "No more of that. Just - was anyone ever real to you, Rick? Was anyone ever..."

"You're the only thing that's ever been real," he sighed, felt the sweep of her fingers against his forehead. "Following you around New York-"

"Spying on me."

"You were so vivid. Colors. You stood out from the background, bright colors. Nothing had ever..."

Her fingers stroked his hair, his temple, his sideburns. His eyes were so heavy, his body was so heavy.

"Afghanistan. I wasn't part of their platoon, their squad. They tried to play tricks on me, get me, break me because I wasn't one of them, because I was my father's son."

"Tricks. Like what?" she whispered behind him. He heard her thighs shift under the blanket.

"Short-sheet my bunk or puncture all my MREs or - or piss in my canteen. Dismantle my weapon and leave out a spring when they put it back together."

"Sounds dangerous, baby," she sighed.

"I wasn't one of them. I've never been one of anyone until you."

She curled around his head and kissed his temple, his cheek, cupping his jaw. Her voice rasped in her throat. "I love you. I love you. You and me, Rick."

He let her cradle his head and he closed his eyes, thought maybe like this he could fall asleep and stay that way.


	9. Chapter 9

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

When Castle woke feeling suffocated in the night, he realized it was because Kate's arm was hooked around his neck, holding him upright as his body slumped into gravity. She was asleep on the couch behind him, and he'd passed out sometime after midnight with his cheek against her bicep and her fingers hooked together on the couch cushions.

He was truly ensnared.

Castle reached up a hand and loosened her grip, his fingers digging into the crease of her elbow, and she stirred, a little sigh of her breath like reluctance, and then her arm fell away. He rubbed his sore throat and experimentally cleared his lungs, felt the build-up and sluggishness settling back down in his chest.

He turned around to look at Kate on the couch, saw the blanket had slipped down to her waist and the black t-shirt was askew. He drew the cover over her, letting it fall at her jaw; she nuzzled down into the warmth and her fingers curled on the cushion.

Castle leaned in and kissed her temple softly, brushed the hair from her forehead. Then he stood up and grabbed the quilt from the air mattress, wrapped it around himself, and settled in her father's recliner.

He watched her sleeping for a long time, his eyelids half-closed and his brain weary, the slow exchange of oxygen in his lungs not quite as efficient as it usually was. He knew it; he knew he had a cold and it was only going to get worse, knew he was in for coughing and headaches and congestion.

But he took this night of relative peace with her close at hand, this night to watch her and know - at least right now - that everything was going to be fine. Eventually.

It was going to be fine.

* * *

The morning light hit the lake and scattered out through the melting snow, reflected back a hundred times by white and ice. Castle pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat and straightened his shoulders, tried to take a deeper breath.

She'd kill him if she knew he was down here, this close, like he was tempting fate.

But he knew better now, knew where the lakeline met the shore, where the freezing waves had stacked on the edges like sheets, one after another, so that the low-lying grass was thick with ice. He rested his shoulder against the boathouse, watched the stillness of the sunrise.

The light began to glow in the eastern edge of the brittle sky, a dull flame behind the clouds, and Castle fought the thin air for oxygen, his chest aching with every breath. The cold air cleared his sinuses and his head as well, made him see the world without the funhouse mirrors.

They were heading to the city in a few hours and they'd step right back into the maelstrom. The joint task force with Secret Service had been a card up his sleeve he hadn't wanted to play, but Bracken had forced their hand. He would interview Viktor Bout and try to make the money connection between the arms dealer and the senator, and then the team would build the case.

They had starting point that they hadn't last time, more than just some numbers on a shredded file, and with the task force backing him up, they had an official status now that a couple guys from the NYPD and his girlfriend-turned-wife-turned-CIA agent just hadn't.

"You're going to give me a heart attack," she said softly. He turned to find her sliding up next to him, her boots barely making a sound, and he allowed her the crook of his arm to slide her hand through. She pressed her hip against his. "You jumped."

"Didn't hear you coming," he murmured.

"Seriously? I thought I sounded like a polar bear coming across all that ice and snow. You could have-"

"Kate," he sighed.

"Right," she said softly. "How do you feel?"

"Kinda shitty, actually, so-"

"Okay," she murmured. "I know. It sucks to feel bad."

He sighed, though his breath caught in the crud that had taken up residence in his lungs overnight, and she squeezed his elbow in sympathy. At least he hoped it was sympathy and not _I told you so._

He really just needed some sympathy. "Sorry," he sighed. He was apologizing a hell of a lot.

Her fingers curled and she stepped in closer, hanging on to him for balance as she came up on her toes and kissed him. Softly, just the corner of his mouth, the lightest brush of her lips.

"You're okay, Castle," she said gently. "You get to be as grumpy and mean as you like. First time being sick since you were little. It takes some getting used to - being humble like us mere mortals."

"You're so funny," he scowled.

She laughed, a bright sound in the sunrise, her face gilded pink in the glow. "Aw, see? You're already so good at being a bear."

"Whatever. I hate you."

"Hate you too, sweetheart."

"If you rub dirt off my cheek with your spit and your thumb, I'm going to do damage," he growled.

She laughed again, a little more sound in the air, echoing off the trees, and she leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "You're not dirty yet, super spy. Come on. We'll make breakfast and then pack up."

"I want to watch the rest of it," he muttered, but the irritation had cleared out of his voice by the end of it. She stood with him in the light of the sunrise over the lake and slid her hand along his forearm and down inside his pocket.

Their fingers fought and then tangled, caught up, and even though it wasn't quite perfect, it was enough.

He watched the full disc of the sun lift over the lake and the colors erupting across the sky, and he knew this was it.

This started the rest of their lives together.

* * *

A week later, Castle called it quits. December 16th and he had a thousand and one things to accomplish but he didn't think he could do it.

He'd never felt like this before.

Castle groaned and rolled over in bed, found Kate already awake and watching him. "I kept you up, didn't I?" he muttered, burying his head in the pillow.

Her fingers came to his forehead, almost hesitant he thought, but then she slowly trailed her nails through his hair, a kiss against his skin. "You have a fever."

"Mm, probably," he sighed. Fingers felt good, cool. He could stay here.

Her silence was as demanding. He knew she wanted him to see a doctor but as a CIA spy, it wasn't like he could just walk into a clinic or general practitioner and get some meds. Besides, it was just a cold. Nothing he could get for a cold anyway.

Still she didn't say anything. Loudly.

"I know Kate," he muttered finally.

Her fingers curled at his neck and her mouth brushed his neck. "Castle, at least let me get you some tylenol?"

"Yeah, yeah. And water?" He turned his head and gave her a pout, but his throat was seriously raw and it wasn't much of a stretch. He felt like shit and they'd hit the ground running at the Office, arresting the guy who'd killed Robert, her PT, and putting a team on the team that had tracked her that day.

"Be right back," she murmured quietly.

He let his eyes close and drifted on the sounds of her in the house, her bare feet on the stairs despite how cold it was, the door opening to let the dog out, the rush of water in a glass. He must have drifted off because the next thing he knew, she was rubbing his back and telling him he had to sit up to take the pills.

Castle groaned and lifted up, curled a knee under himself to keep from falling over again. She was studying him intently, but he blanked his face and took the tylenol, swallowed it down with a wince.

She handed him another couple of pills, bright orange, and he lifted an eyebrow. She put them in his hand anyway and he took them because she was probably right and anyway, he didn't know the first thing about medicating a cold.

He swallowed and had to take another gulp of water to get them down, his throat constricting. It'd been difficult to breathe at night and he'd found himself trying to prop up against the headboard. He'd spent a few nights on the Ugly Couch, but she always came down to find him. So he'd given that up.

She wasn't getting much more sleep than he was, but he definitely was getting less. Definitely. Coughing all night.

Castle laid down in the bed again and closed his eyes.

"I think you should-"

"Yeah, I'll set it up this morning," he admitted. Defeat. Gracefully. He hoped. "I'll find one of the docs at the Office."

"Good," she breathed, slumping back into bed at his side. "Good, thank you."

He cracked open an eyelid and watched the relief pour over her and he resolved to do better. It was just a stupid cold, and he was working through it, but he'd never had one before and he knew he was being stupid about it. He should've done it differently, insisted he sleep on the couch or...

He didn't know. Just different. She needed sleep and yet the Office was slammed with cases right now. He had an interview with Viktor Bout in two days but now he felt so badly that it would be detrimental to their investigation to have him hacking all over the place.

He'd lose their power, just like Kate had talked about. "I need you to set up Esposito for the interview," he said.

"What?"

"I'm not gonna make it," he rasped, felt the tickle start in his throat again. He tried to suppress it, tried to swallow and keep it at bay, but it was no good. He started coughing, shaking the whole bed, and he had to sit up with it to keep from choking.

She laid her hand on his back and he waved her off. But she pressed the water into his fingers and he took it, sipped slowly as the fit receded.

"My abs are killing me," he croaked.

She laughed, but she looked upset. "Esposito doesn't clear training until-"

"Fine. It's fine," he said. "I'll clear him. Send him out with Mitch."

"What about me?"

"I need you to run the place, sweetheart."

She huffed a breath but he took another swallow of water, tried to focus. He felt like shit. Wow. He pressed his thumb into his eyeball to ease the pressure. "You - there are at least five active missions in Chechnya, Ukraine-"

"Albania, Georgia, and Belarus. I know."

He nodded tightly, pressed his eyeball harder because there was something about the shooting pain of it that lessened all the other pain. "Yes. And. The interview with Bout. Robert's killer-"

"The contract killer, Fesker," she supplied immediately. "That's mine. I've got Malone collecting evidence for presentation to the Attorney General. I've liaised with a federal agent named McCord. She's interested in the wider picture - she's good."

"Good," he grunted. He hadn't even read her report yet. It was still sitting untouched in his email. Shit. There was something else too. "Mason. Shit. Mason is-"

"Flying to Warsaw. I know." She pressed her hand against his shoulder and he felt himself collapse back into the mattress.

"Beckett, I need you to handle all this for me." His arm was too heavy and he let it drop. "There's a lot going on and nothing can be dropped. Mitch is gonna be operational but I need you to be in charge."

"I can do that," she said quickly. "You need to see the doctor." She was stroking her hand over his chest in circles, some kind of witchery that made his lungs loosen up, his breathing easier.

"I'll call," he promised. "And I'll clear Esposito and he'll be in the Office by Thursday."

"Three days," she said. Her hand pressed into his sternum and he felt his body falling apart under her touch. "Okay. I'll start with the open operations this morning, check in with Malone about Fesker."

"Don't let that agent from the AG's tell you they want the bigger fish. You tell them we're done with deals. Deals don't get us shit." His legs were heavy. Oh, she'd pulled the covers back up over him.

"I know," she whispered, her cool fingers brushing against his forehead. When had he closed his eyes again?

"My phone... email. My email. Have Malone forward all my status alerts and..."

"I know," she breathed, her kiss over his cheek so light and cool. "I have everything under control, Rick."

"Mason. Mason's in Warsaw. Don't leave him-"

"I know," she hummed. "Sleep, love. I want you to sleep."

There was more. There would be more. He was so tired. He just needed sleep.

"Love you, Rick. Feel better."

* * *

Kate Beckett scanned her ID into the panel and gestured for Esposito to do the same. He grinned like a maniac and the computer registered his entry, opened the door to admit the two of them into the command center.

Esposito whistled. "This feels good."

"I'm glad," she grinned back. "And it's good to have you."

"Since your lame husband couldn't bring his sorry ass into work," Espo grinned.

"I know you're delighted," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "But he's a bear to live with. He's never had a cold before. Anyway, Ryan has three more weeks of extended computer training, and then he'll be in here with you. Merry early Christmas."

"Ha, thanks. This is cool. Honestly, it worked out great for me that your boy got sick," Espo said, giving her another insufferable grin. "Since it got me in here faster. But I hope he gets better soon."

"Wow, that almost sounded sincere," she said, punching his arm.

Espo had already gotten his ID credentials and was on his way to qualifying for a firearm. His Army service had given him a kind of credit in the training process, allowed him to bypass some of it, just as Castle himself had done years ago.

"All right. Where do you want me?" he said, rubbing his hands together like a mastermind.

Kate shook her head ruefully and guided him down to the floor level where all the stations were. She pulled out a chair and gestured for him to sit. Espo did, like a king taking a throne, and she shoved him a little too hard back up to his station.

"Beckett, don't be nasty because your man's at home hacking up a lung."

"Shut up, Espo," she muttered. She reached past him and called up his screen. "Malone gave you the login?"

"Yup, all set."

"It'll prompt you to change the password and when you do, if it's not up par, it'll make you come up with a new one. Don't write it down - that's like rule number one."

"Be cool, Beckett. I'm not an idiot."

She grinned back at him and tapped the tablet screen that was mounted into the station. "This is the central work roster. All you can see here is what you've been assigned. Nothing else. It will tell you where to find the data you need to do the work, and it will give you your schedule assignment. It might change at a moment's notice, so be checking. I think Castle had you slated to cover the Viktor Bout interview for him with Mitchell. The two of you will need to do some extensive research, get together on interrogation techniques, etc. I wish Ryan were here - I'd love for both of you to be in on this, but..."

"I got your back, Beckett. I can work with Mitchell. Him and me - we'll be best buds."

She couldn't help but feel relieved. Since Castle was down with a cold and hadn't gotten sleep in days, she was trying to keep on top of the Secret Service task force. They had to be cautious and circumspect, and these Service guys just weren't. Not just that, but the ongoing ops were seriously taking chunks out of her day, all kinds of problems she had to account for and think ahead of. She honestly fell into bed at the end of the day and Castle's coughing didn't even wake her anymore.

Not all the time anyway.

"Thanks, Espo. We need banking information, basically. Mitch will fill you in. Meanwhile, I hate to run, but I've got to liaise with the AG's team and then check on Castle."

"Yeah, you go. We're good here. I got this."

"Ryan has access, if you need him," she told him.

She watched him for just a second, but Esposito had already begun logging in, his heart and mind set on the task.

She knew she could trust him to get it done.

* * *

Beckett was in the drug store picking up another bottle of iron pills - the doctor had rechecked her levels and the anemia was still in force, though not severe enough to warrant IV iron (contrary to Castle's 'professional medical opinion') - when her phone buzzed.

If it was Brantley from Secret Service again, she was going to murder him.

With her bare hands.

Beckett juggled the bottle of cough suppressant and the massive bottle of iron pills as she headed towards the register, digging her phone out of her back pocket. She'd given up on getting Brantley to stop using their Secret Service vehicles during their surveillance of the senator, but if he was calling to say he'd changed his mind about the number of agents-

It was Castle.

He'd messaged her, and the alert on her phone gave her just enough to make her heart freeze in her chest.

_Need your help._

She abandoned the cold medicine and the vitamins right there in line and headed for the door.

* * *

She couldn't get him on the phone, no matter how long she let it ring, no matter how many times she called. She messaged him four more times but he didn't message back. Only those three cryptic words, and the sensation in her guts that she was losing something, something was being taken from her.

She didn't even know what, or where the threat was coming from, only that Castle had been demanding this past week, but childish and sort of cute. Not cryptic. Surly, maybe, but he wouldn't hide from her, wouldn't be quite this petulant, like he was trying to pay her back for something with his silence.

She had the alarm turned off before she'd even made it up the front steps, and then she was shoving inside the door and calling out to him, her weapon in her hand because she just didn't know.

"Castle?" She paused in the foyer, debating between the panic room below and the bedroom upstairs, but then she heard the sharp whine of the dog from above.

Oh, no.

"Castle." She took the steps two at a time and ran down the hallway towards the master.

She nearly knocked him over.

He gripped her hard and listed into her; she heard his breath like a man drowning, thick and wrong and wheezing. "K-" He fell over her even as she tried to holster her weapon, and Kate had to grab him.

"God. Castle? Castle, what's wrong?"

Sasha whined again and barked, dancing around their feet, and Kate grabbed her husband by the shoulders to push him upright and look at him.

His lips were purple.

"Can you breathe? Look at me. Castle-"

He shook his head, and his mouth opened like he wanted to answer her, but his chest was sucking in air in great wide gasps, panic crawling across his face and setting up residence in his eyes. He swayed on his feet.

"Okay, okay, I got you. We have the oxygen tank from the doc-"

He shook his head violently again and she pushed him back to the bed, made him sit, even though he resisted. She reached for the oxygen mask attached to the tank that the CIA doctor had given him a couple days ago, but when she twisted open the valve, she realized it was empty.

"Gone, gone," he was saying, in between sucking breaths that made her think of gaping chest wounds and blood filling up lungs. "Kate," he croaked, and she could see his lips turning blue now, the color fading. His fingers on her arms were blanched.

"I'm calling 911," she told him.

"No-"

"Castle. You can't _breathe_." She already had her phone out, dialing fast, but he groaned and his fingers loosened around her wrist in what she thought might be agreement.

But it wasn't.

She turned back to him to argue, to make him see reason, and at that very second, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed back to the mattress.

Not breathing at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

When Castle found consciousness again, he was no longer drowning. But his chest was in a vise, tight bands that wrapped along his ribs and made it hard to breathe. His lids were heavy, fingers numb. Everything ached.

"Rick?"

His eyes slid open and her face appeared like sunrise.

"Hey there," she whispered. Her smile was brittle and she leaned in, her fingers brushing his forehead.

A mask was over his mouth; he couldn't lift his hand to brush it off. She shook her head.

"Don't, leave it. It's helping you breathe."

Breathe.

"You have walking pneumonia, sweetheart," she murmured. Her eyes were tight with pain but she caught his hand and pressed it against her chest. "I had to call for an ambulance."

He couldn't - wasn't supposed to be here. Not a good idea after... she should be somewhere safe. At the Office. She should-

"Stop it," she said softly. "Leave the mask on."

He grunted but the sound was dampened by the rattle in his lungs.

"Don't make disapproving noises at me," she muttered at him. She looked tired. "You have a chest tube draining fluid out of your lungs, Castle. You're getting breathing treatments and oxygen. People die from this, leaving it untreated."

He tried to wave it off, tried to show her he was going to be fine, but she let out a shaky breath and pressed the back of his hand into her forehead, bowed over him.

"Kate," he garbled.

She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed him, her lashes lifting. She looked so tired that it made his chest ache even more.

"Kate," he mouthed.

"I should've..." She shook her head and closed her eyes again, and whatever she thought she should have done, she didn't say. Instead she moved right along. "I sent Mitchell back to the house to get Sasha. She's going to stay with Carrie until you're better, since I don't know when I can... I won't leave you here alone."

She dropped into silence, though she still wouldn't look at him. Her hand clasped in his was pressed into her collarbone and he could feel the rise of her skeletal structure under that too-thin skin.

Castle studied her for a long time, unable to get his sluggish brain to move much past the curve of her jaw and the dark shadow under her cheekbone. She looked so beautiful that it hurt, and he didn't know if the hurt was due to that removal from him right now or her slow build back from emaciated. But he didn't like her being over there and him unable to do anything.

"With me," he rasped, tugging on her hand. She opened her eyes slowly, apologies swimming in those dark irises. He tugged again and tried to make her understand, and she seemed to get it finally.

Kate leaned forward to press her knee into the mattress near his thigh, and then she crawled into the tight space left between him and the edge of the bed.

"Here," he husked, drawing her hand to his chest, trying to get her closer.

"Can't," she said, shaking her head. "You need to breathe."

He stared at her, hoped she saw his mournfulness, but she curled her body up like she wasn't going to give in. Her fingers trailed through his bangs and her thumb traced his eyebrow.

"Just keep breathing," she whispered. "You're on some heavy drugs, and you should sleep. I won't let anything happen to you this time. I promise."

* * *

It was the commotion in the hallway that warned her, and then - as if she needed it - the squeak of a host of shoes coming through ICU was enough to have her jerking off the bed and down to the floor, swaying on her feet.

"You can't do this. He's not stable enough to be moved," the nurse was saying.

Kate met the phalanx of men as they jerked aside the privacy curtain, but it was Mitchell at the fore, the nurse trailing another five guys with a gurney between them.

"Mitch?"

"He can't be out here," Mitchell grimaced.

"No," she said, pushing him back, trying to protect Castle's unconscious form from the hands of the men who were trying to lift him. "Stop. Mitchell. No. He can't be moved. He nearly _died_."

"You want to risk leaving him - and you - exposed like this?"

"What are you _doing_?" Kate hissed, elbowing him aside. But she couldn't stop the agents who were unhooking his machines, transferring the tubes and IV and the oxygen. "Wait. He's on breathing treatments. You can't-"

"I'm calling the doctor," the nurse announced shakily, scurrying off.

"We have everything right here, Agent Beckett. You need to let me do this."

"No. He needs to be in a hospital, not the CIA's damn underground _clinic_."

"This is Dr. Saber. He's on Castle's team. He'll take care of everything."

She was being handed off to the older man in the sharpest-looking suit, but even while she opened her mouth to seriously start busting some balls, the doctor's hand closed around hers in a fierce grip.

"I have been looking out for Richard nearly all his life," Dr Saber smoothed over.

Kate's head whipped back to the man, eyes narrowing.

"I will take good care of him."

"No," she grit out, wrenching her hand from his and sidestepping into Mitchell, blocking his way. "Stop. You can't do this. You're his _friend_. He needs-"

"-expert care," Dr Saber said, trying to slide between them again.

She turned her back on him and reached out, snagged Castle's limp hand as if that could hold him here. "This is one of the best medical-"

"I can't leave him here," Mitchell said softly, his eyes sympathetic. "Orders from the Director."

The Director.

And then the rush of dizziness fell over her in a great wave, and she felt herself tilting forward, blackness crawling into her vision even as Mitchell caught her.

"You could do with some time in a clinic too," he said quietly, holding her up.

"No," she grunted, but everything was slow, everything weighing her down.

"Make sure you check the machine. The oxygen levels should match what he's on right now," Saber was saying over her head. She couldn't get her knees to lock, couldn't see past the narrow field of black.

Black.

Oh, God.

Was this his doing?

* * *

Beckett held her elbows into her sides to keep her fury from erupting. She wanted - most of all - to knock Saber out cold, but she couldn't.

He was monitoring Castle's heart as they sped away from the hospital in the back of an ambulance. The driver was a man she'd seen before but couldn't quite place until he'd introduced him self as Ed Caldwell. He'd been with them before, but last time it was driving the ambulance on its way to Stone Farm, and even though it should be comforting to see another friendly face, she couldn't help but see Black's touch everywhere.

"He's not doing well," Saber intoned.

She could fucking murder him, but he was keeping her husband alive right now.

"I _told_ you," she hissed at Mitchell again. His face was deathly white as he stared down at Castle, the four of them cramped into the back. Dr Saber had elevated Castle's head so that he was propped up at least, but the fluid was building again and his breath sounds were terrible.

Kate gripped Castle's arm harder; he'd woken up at some point during the transfer but he didn't seem to be entirely cognizant. His eyes met hers now, burning bright, and she reached up to touch the back of her hand to his forehead.

"He's burning up," she gritted out. "He didn't have a fever when we left."

"It's a response to the fluid on his lungs," Saber said automatically. He was opening the hospital gown and checking the bandage where the line into Castle's chest had been attached to a bag. The chest tube had been removed for transport.

Caldwell injected something into the IV and Kate felt her lungs catching. She had no idea what they were doing to him, and they'd refused to answer her questions, refused to explain because it would 'take too long.'

Castle's hand around hers squeezed harder and she met his eyes again, saw the panic crawling inside his gaze.

"He can't breathe," she said urgently, crowding as close as she could get to him. "Saber. He can't breathe. You have to _do_ something."

"Agent Beckett, kindly do not shout at me."

She growled but felt Castle's fingers gripping hers so hard that she cried out and glanced back at him. The desperation in his eyes made her feel weak. His lungs labored in his chest, but she could tell he wasn't getting much air; he sounded like he was drowning on dry land.

"Please do something. He can't breathe."

"I am doing what I can. Agent Caldwell, the catheter, if you please."

Castle made a noise from under the oxygen mask and she laced his fingers with hers, trying to ease his grip but also trying to reaffirm his presence, his connection to her. She could do nothing else.

"His arm," Saber said tersely, and Caldwell lifted Castle's other arm up over his head. The white flesh of his chest was exposed, and Saber fingered the dip between Castle's ribs where the cut had been made.

When they pierced his side with the scalpel again and threaded the new chest tube into the pleural space, Castle groaned and passed out.

But within moments, the new bag was in place and filling slowly with fluid.

Still, Castle didn't come around again.

* * *

He woke alone. The room was grey concrete, the blue light harshly scraping down his face. Halogen, double tube, flickering.

He could breathe, but it was an effort.

Castle opened his mouth and inhaled the faintly metallic taste of oxygen from a canister. He shifted his knee before he knew where all his limbs resided, and found he was propped upright and that his wrists were bound to the railing.

Couldn't be good. He remembered an ambulance ride with Beckett, and the feeling - much worse than now - of drowning. But now his breaths were only faintly gurgling, his side was on fire, and Beckett was missing.

Castle nudged his knee - since it was up - into the edge of the velcro on his wrist. It gave a little and he slowly twisted his wrist, focusing on that one thing, trying to ignore everything else. If he could get up and find Beckett, if he could see her-

The door swung open, inward, which felt strange to his sluggish brain, and four non-descripts walked inside, suits and ties, broad hands, blank faces. He'd worry about a nightmare but one of the guys gave him a nod and began unstrapping his wrists.

"Where's Beckett?" he asked, tried to sound authoritative. But he mostly sounded drugged.

"Right here, Castle."

She was walking through the door with Mitchell right behind her, her hair pulled back into a loose, slipshod bun. She looked tired, but she was peeling back the velcro on his other wrist.

"What's going on?"

"You crashed in the ambulance and we had to - stop here - and stabilize you before we could move on."

"Here? Move on?"

"We're at a military base just outside the city. Your doctor is an asshole, but I at least got the orders changed - we're heading to Stone Farm. At least I know the people there."

Castle blinked at that information and brought his hand up to rub at his face. The mask was in the way but Kate caught his hand before he could knock it askew, shaking her head.

"You're going to be okay. The Director... called Mitchell personally to have you transferred. Dr Saber was his suggestion."

"You're not happy," he said, feeling slow on the uptake. She looked livid, actually, though to his credit, the exhaustion lining her eyes and pinching her mouth had distracted him.

"You could say that," she murmured, a lift of an eyebrow to punctuate the understatement.

The guys had unstrapped him now and the one who had given him that polite nod was lowering the head of the bed.

"No," Beckett said insistently. "We're not doing that. He's got to stay upright."

The polite kid blushed, eyes averted. "Yes, ma'am."

"You giving 'em hell, Becks?"

She shot him a look but wrapped her hand around his wrist and nodded towards the door. "We're taking you back out there and heading for Stone Farm. How do you feel?"

"Rough," he admitted. His chest hurt, lungs burning, but he wasn't sure how to make it stop. He'd never had a cold like this before - pneumonia, she'd said - and the sensation of near-drowning that seemed ever present was disconcerting. He was so tired that it got the best of him and made him panic.

He wondered if maybe he should've told her about it before. Or the doctor she'd made him see at the CIA office a few days ago. Maybe it wasn't supposed to feel like this.

"Hard to breathe," he said then, catching her sleeve. Her sweater so soft against his thumb and forefinger. He wanted, suddenly, for her to lie down over him and keep him warm.

"I know it is," she whispered quickly. Her hand pressed to his forehead and she kissed his cheek. "We'll make this last leg as fast as we can."

"Aren't we waiting for Dr Saber?" the polite kid asked.

"No," Beckett growled. "We're not. He's not coming."

And then Castle found himself being wheeled from the room.

* * *

It felt strange being back here, though she couldn't figure out a safer place for them. If the Director wanted Castle off the radar - and she agreed, they were sitting ducks back at Langone Medical - then she could at least see this as feasible.

She could envision Castle getting better here.

Saber? No. That man was an asshole and Beckett didn't want him anywhere near her husband. That comment about having 'watched over' him for his whole life had made her skin crawl, and the look on Mitchell's face had let her know that he hadn't known about that either.

Castle had never mentioned Saber before, so whatever part the man had played in her husband's life - in the regimen - Castle hadn't known him by name. And he didn't seem to know him in the ambulance either. So Saber was out, no matter what the Director said.

Castle was upstairs in the big stone farmhouse, a section she'd never visited before due to the place's restrictions. The upstairs bedrooms were remodeled hospital rooms, with equipment set up to monitor a host of near-fatal conditions. The doctor here, Dr Boyd, took one look at Castle and immediately hooked him up to a breathing machine, a tube down his throat, and it was Logan who had cleaned his chest tube and inserted a new one.

"He's not great," Logan told her quietly. "But he'll pull through. You've seen him. He's like superman. He's never been here long."

She nodded at the nurse - grateful he was the one assigned to the Farm - and moved deeper into the room. Castle was unconscious again, sedated this time, and the bag at his side was only a third filled with fluid from his lungs.

"You press that button, Kate, and I'll be here in moments. I'm just down the hall at the security station."

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. "Thank you, Logan."

"Hey, I know the circumstances suck, but it's good to see you, Kate. As always, you look smoking hot." He winked at her and shifted out of the room.

She must look a little like her old self - no longer so broken after Russia - if Logan was teasing her.

She could do this. Castle had needed to stop micro-managing the office from home in order to truly get better, and she could use the time to focus solely on him and his recovery.

No more running around. Just the two of them.

Kate sank down onto the mattress and laid down beside him, keeping clear of the tubes and wires, pressing her hand under her cheek as she watched him.

She'd memorize every breath, know every heartbeat, and she'd be here the next time he needed her.

* * *

When the knock sounded against the closed door of Castle's room, Beckett had a feeling she knew exactly who it was on the other side. She let the moment draw out until it felt tenuous and fragile, and then she slipped from Castle's bed and opened the door to Mitchell.

He looked ready to do battle, but it crumbled when he saw her face.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "But he told me to do it."

"But you _know_ that Black has the Director-"

"Not the Director," Mitchell interrupted, his shoulders at his ears. "Castle. Rick told me to do it."

"The hell he did."

"No, he did," Mitch insisted. He came inside the room but stopped before he got much farther. He turned steely eyes on her, looking certain of himself. "Last week when you guys got back from your long weekend. He told me that you were trying to get him to go to the doctor, but he said you couldn't."

"_I _couldn't?"

"After the NSA guys on the street and Robert found dead..."

"Me? He's the one-"

"He made me promise to keep you safe. If your name's in a chart in a medical systems database, Beckett, then I can't keep you safe. Then Bracken's guys know exactly where you both are. Where you _both_ are. Don't you see?"

"I can't believe you went behind my back."

He shook his head and crossed his arms. "I know how you work. If I'd come to you, you'd have found a way to block it. To block me. You're fucking tenacious when it comes to him, and even if I swore up and down that there was a credible threat to your life, you wouldn't have pulled him from the hospital."

"He's not... not in good condition," she said finally. Her throat felt raw. "He has to stay upright to keep fluid from filling his lungs. He can barely breathe; he's on a machine for God's sake."

"I know that."

"He shouldn't have been moved."

"He shouldn't have been in the hospital in the first place," Mitchell said back hotly, his nostrils flaring as he stared her down. "It should _never_ have gotten that far."

She turned her head, shame and grief flooding her guts and rising in her throat. She knew that already, knew she'd dropped the ball when it came to Castle's health; she knew she'd been so busy trying to run the task force on Bracken that she'd let slide all the worrisome things about his cold that had tried to warn her.

"I know," she ground out. "I know he shouldn't-"

"No damn CIA agent is ever supposed to wind up as a name and number in a public hospital. You did the training, Beckett; you should know better. That's what the fucking panic button is _for_. You call us - not 911."

The panic button. But she - damn it, she couldn't. Just the memory of those men dragging her away from him as he died... she couldn't.

"But once he was there-"

"No. Too many enemies, too vulnerable. I had to take him out of there. And you as well." Mitchell shook his head and turned to leave the room, the tension still sour between them. "I did what he asked me to do. I did the right thing."

"You may have killed him," she whispered, but she knew she was only accusing herself.


	11. Chapter 11

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

Logan rubbed the top of his head. He'd come through the door only minutes ago, not giving Beckett a chance to get up from the bed, and she stayed where she was now because she was just too tired to care.

"It's... not good, Kate." He reached her side and took her by the upper arm, drew her off Castle's bed.

"What's not good?" she said, her throat tightening. Logan was pulling her gently towards the door and months of habit from the time she'd been here had Beckett following docilely, before she could even think about it.

"It's - it's not looking good," he said again. Logan shut the door to Castle's room behind him and she realized he had brought a team with him to deliver the news. A team in biohazard suits. Holy fuck.

"Why? What's changed from four hours ago to now? What are you doing? What are they doing?"

"I got a look at his bloodwork."

"And?" she choked. The biohazard guys went into Castle's room. "What's going on?"

"This is nothing I've ever seen before," he muttered. He stared at her in apology. "I showed Ragle and the doc on call here - Dr Boyd, he was your guy too - they've never seen this either."

"Seen what?" she breathed, her lips going numb with the first sensations of panic. "You said it's pneumonia."

"Blood like his," Logan said, wincing and shaking his head. Kate's rising panic seemed to claw at her throat and wrap its terrible fingers around her heart. He glanced at the close door and then back to her. "I have no idea what the hell's been done to him, but he's not normal. This is not normal."

"The regimen," she rasped, closing her eyes.

"What?"

Beckett felt her whole body shaking, had to press the heels of her hands into her eyes to keep from falling apart. Everything falling apart. There were men inside Castle's room now doing... things. Something. He wasn't normal.

"What about - what about the pneumonia?" she gritted out.

"It's still there, for sure. But it's mutated - even since he _got_ here. It's a form I've never seen before. The hospital - Langone Medical - they'd noticed it was mutating in their initial tests as well, but they're a research hospital. They were sending it up the food chain. Thankfully, Mitchell's team swept it clean and we've got all the samples and findings and we called off the CDC. But-"

"Wait. Wait. The CDC? Mutated? What does that mean?"

"I don't know what it means, Kate," Logan said with another shake of his head. "We don't know what more to do for him. The pneumonia is a new breed, his immune system isn't strong enough to fight it off, and the way his blood cells look under a microscope is giving me the creeps."

She bowed her head into her hands and tried to breathe.

"We don't know what to do for him. We'll up the anti-virals he's on, but I have a feeling it's like giving penicillin to a guy with VRSA."

"What's versa?" she muttered, lifting her head. Had that been a joke? Was Logan _joking_ with her about her husband?

"It's... a bacteria resistant to some of the strongest known drugs. A disease that can't be killed with the meds we have."

"Fuck," she gasped, eyes darting back to the door.

"No, I'm not... I'm just saying that whatever strand of pneumonia he's got, it's aggressively attacking him. And from the way his blood responds to it... I don't know. That's what I'm saying, Kate. I just don't know. We don't know. We're going to do anything and everything for him, but for now, you can't go back in there."

"_What_?"

"This strand of pneumonia..."

"I've _been_ in there. We sleep together, Logan. If I was going to catch it, I'd have caught it already."

"Yeah, you'd think, right? But we just don't know."

"I'm not abandoning him now," Beckett said hotly, pushing past him for the door. "I'm not leaving him alone to wake up with those biohazard suits and-"

"If you - if you go in there, Kate..."

"If I catch it, I catch it," she said blankly, turning the knob and pushing it open. "If it can't be cured, then..."

Logan gripped her arm. "That's not what I mean. Maybe _he_ can be cured but you can't."

She paused, a footstep away from running back to that bed, but she'd finally heard him. When Castle got better only to discover he'd given her some strange disease, that she...

"I won't stay away from him," she said roughly, knew she was pleading.

"At least wear a mask," Logan sighed. "Wear a mask and scrubs, and for God's sake, stop kissing him."

Kate choked on a laugh, threw Logan a desperate look.

"We'll get you set up to stay in there with him. I'll have to draw blood from you every few hours, just to check. These rooms are biohazard compatible, so the ventilation system is being isolated and the trash will go in a special chute. The team inside will show you what to do."

"Will he... does he..."

"We'll figure out what the pneumonia is doing to him, and we'll stop it," Logan said confidently. "I've already asked for an infectious disease guy to fly up here from Memphis. He's top of his field and on the CDC board. If he asks you for any classified details, you tell him this is a CDC facility. He won't be given names; you don't offer information."

"Got it," she whispered, nodding as she opened the door. Castle was still unconscious in the bed, but now there was a clear plastic curtain draped from floor to ceiling. The team inside were wrapping his hands in something that also looked like plastic, and his skin was being swabbed with what smelled like alcohol.

Kate took a step forward, but Logan caught her arm. "I need to run you through a decon shower first. Burn your clothes. Just in case. He doesn't need any more infections either."

She shivered and turned back to him. "Fine. Hurry. I want to get back in there with him before he wakes."

* * *

Castle realized he was awake only when the air stopped making it into his lungs.

He gasped and flailed out, felt his hand strike something hard, his eyes peeling open with the gut instinct of panic, but Kate was there, rising up over him, pressing his shoulders down.

She was wearing a mask. No, he was wearing a mask. The air was thick, like syrup in his lungs, everything sticky, but the oxygen didn't seem to dig deep enough.

She was wearing a mask. They were both wearing masks.

He heaved in air and jerked upright, sitting straight up, the ache of his chest nearly breaking him in half, but she was wearing a mask and scrubs and oh God, oh God, the bed was cordoned like a biohazard containment-

"No," he croaked, sucking in breath even as he tried to untangle her hand from his. "Go."

"Castle, you're okay. Your left lung is filling a little faster than they thought. That's all. Give it time to drain. Let the machine breathe for you. Stop, stop tugging it out-"

Even as she talked, a guy in a full biohazard suit was unsealing the bag from the chest tube and replacing it - a _full suit_ - and he felt the moment the fluid began to drain faster out of his chest.

But his lung didn't seem to want to inflate. The machine was shoving air inside him but it didn't seem to work. He was contaminated. Contaminated.

"Get. Out," he choked. He jerked his hand to indicate the whole room, and she shook her head, gripped his arm.

"You know that's not happening. Now stop fighting me so hard, stop fighting the machine, and just _breathe_, you damn bully."

Castle groaned and tried to push on her but she was so much stronger than him; his breath was coming in agonizing blades, in and out like knives, and he didn't think his lungs were working. The machine pushed like a bellows, shoving it inside all the spaces he had left, but it couldn't force the oxygen exchange.

"You have a form of pneumonia they haven't seen before," she said. She had to talk louder over the sound of his fish-gasping. Fuck. Beckett. He wanted her _out of here_.

"You," he rasped, his throat raw against the tube. It wasn't even recognizable words, just the garble of sound.

But she knew anyway. "I haven't gotten it yet, have I? It likes your weird blood, super spy."

Weird blood. Weird bug. He couldn't breathe, couldn't draw in enough breath to make anything work. His head was fuzzy but there was a biohazard sticker on the damn trash can.

"Kate," he begged through the mask.

"I'm not leaving you alone. You need to breathe. Please, love. Stop focusing on me, and concentrate on getting a full breath. I know you can do it. I need you to do it."

He groaned on the ragged breath out, but she was stroking the hair off his forehead and rubbing his chest with her other hand and it felt like an elephant was sitting on him but he could faintly register the slow trickle of fluid draining.

He knew half the sensation of drowning was purely panic. He knew it; he'd had those training classes. If he just concentrated on breathing. If he just took it in and let it out again, if he just let the machine do all the work.

"There you go, like that. Just like that, sweetheart. You got it. Oh, that's it. Thank you, thank you."

Another breath came through the muck in his lungs, through the closed-up choking of his throat.

"You're okay. You're okay. Just breathe," she was murmuring, her fingers cool and lovely against his cheeks, his neck, his jaw.

"Kate," he croaked.

"I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. It's been ten hours since they curtained you off, and I don't have a trace of it."

He closed his eyes and - for once - was so damn grateful she wasn't pregnant. If she had been and he couldn't get her to leave him... as it was, she'd never do it, never. She'd stay no matter the danger.

Her fingers brushed under his eyes and her mouth kissed his forehead. "Don't cry. Don't, Rick. Only makes it harder to breathe. Please."

God, he was a bastard, but all he wanted was for her to stay right here, ward off another desperate drowning, just stay right here.

But he didn't want her to catch this.

"I'm fine; I'm fine and they think I can't get it anyway. I told you, love, it's something to do with the strange shape of your red blood cells. It doesn't seem able to survive on mine."

He let out a long, garbled breath and drew his arm around her neck. She came down, close but not against him, her forehead to his chin, her body propped up over his.

"Regimen," he said finally, the word a broken thing in his lungs, no more than a noise against the tube.

"I think it was the regimen," she whispered. "I think it did this to you."

He had to close his eyes and concentrate on breathing.

* * *

Kate pressed her back against the wall and breathed slowly through the thin mask, her eyes on the ceiling in the hallway.

Logan wasn't suited up; he seemed to agree with Dr Boyd and Beckett herself that Castle couldn't be that highly contagious. But for their sake, Kate wore the mask and kept the scrubs on, wouldn't risk accidentally passing a superbug because she might already be carrying it.

"He's here?" she asked. She thought she'd seen the infectious disease doctor get hustled inside the farmhouse by Ragle - the guy who ran Stone Farm. But she'd been distracted by the terrible rattle in her husband's lungs. Every breath was a battle, and they'd finally sedated him an hour ago.

"He's here. Dr Threkeld. He's good, Kate. He's still looking at our cultures."

"Has he ever seen-"

"No," Logan interrupted quickly. "He's never seen blood cells like that. We hesitate to categorize... but Boyd is calling them malformed - something like sickle cell, only Castle's red blood cells have always functioned correctly. In fact, his blood cells seem to carry _more_ oxygen than normal."

"So... what does that mean for his pneumonia?"

"We're going to try upping his oxygen, see if it's possible that his blood cells are starved even on the high dose we're giving him."

"Oh," she murmured, glancing back at the door that led to him. "Because if his cells do carry more oxygen, then what he's getting isn't enough."

"Right. The pneumonia in his lungs might be exacerbated by oxygen deprivation - but he can't get more oxygen if his lungs aren't working right."

"He's still got fluid build-up," she whispered, closing her eyes a moment. "Why can't you get that under control?"

"Because he's still sick. His immune system is producing it."

Kate pressed her lips together, but as much as she wanted to _understand_ what was happening to him, it all sounded like guesswork.

"What about the regimen?" she insisted. "Castle has been on some unknown combination of experimental drugs since he was five. Could that have made his red blood cells... malformed?"

"Hard to say," Logan sighed. "Really, Beckett. I'm sorry. There's too much we don't know. For now, we're throwing anti-virals at him and increasing his oxygen."

Kate crossed her arms over her chest, but no matter how she searched her mind, there was nothing else. The regimen was another unknown - and whether or not it had caused Castle's peculiar physiology didn't matter in the long run. Castle had to fend off this virus before it took over his system.

Logan put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "As soon as Dr Threkeld makes his initial findings, I'll come update you. He should be able to give us a better handle on this thing, and he'll start research on what might work best to beat it."

"A superbug," she murmured, her mouth twisting.

Logan let her go; he knew her well enough to stop trying to comfort her. Only made it worse. She swallowed back the grief that wanted to claim her and focused on the man behind that closed door.

"Tell me what I can do," she said quickly. "Tell me what to do to help him."

"Keep him elevated. If his breathing starts to sound too dry or too wet, press the call button and give him a little more oxygen - just nudge the valve open. He shouldn't wake, but you told me that he doesn't do well under sedation, so if he does - if he wakes up - keep him calm. Half the problem is his instinctive response to that sensation of drowning."

She nodded. "Keep him calm. Okay. Anything else?"

"If you can... get some rest. We're monitoring him very closely, Kate. We won't let anything happen to him. Even if you just doze in the chair, please try. Sleep is the first firewall against getting sick yourself - exhaustion only allows the enemy inside."

For some reason, she felt like Logan wasn't talking only about the virus.

"I'll... try," she got out.

But it wasn't likely. Not when Castle's every breath sounded like it was his last.

* * *

Dr Threkeld was a fit, fifty-something man with impeccable manners and a formerly-crisp dress shirt that had recently been wrinkled by sitting hunched over a work table. Beckett held her arms close to her chest and listened to his calm words, tried to take that same certainty and peace inside herself as well.

It wasn't working, despite how nicely Dr Threkeld phrased it.

"Pneumonia is an infection that occurs in the lungs when your body has been invaded by a bacteria _or_ a virus - even a fungus. So we have to identify what's caused the infection. In your husband's case, it's definitely a virus. Problem is - it's so mutated that we can't tell what it was originally, flu or something else."

Kate wasn't sure what that meant for what happened next. "Okay. So you don't know what his original infection was. Why does that matter? He can't breathe."

Threkeld looked like he adored the classroom; he seemed to rise to the teaching occasion. "When a virus enters the bloodstream, it attacks the cells so it can propagate."

Kate blew out a slow breath. "Right. Injects its own DNA into the cell, uses the cell's own nucleus to reproduce. I remember that from biology in high school."

"Yes, ma'am, exactly. What's interesting about your husband's case is that the virus seems to have attacked his red blood cells. With flu, it's epithelial cells that are used, but here it seems to be these red blood cells. And his are already - ah, different."

"To put it mildly," Logan muttered.

Kate shifted in her seat and wished she were upstairs instead of stuck down here with the coterie of medical professionals. Dr Boyd, Dr Threkeld, Logan, Ed Caldwell, and Ragle were all huddled around the kitchen table she'd sat at for months herself. She had vivid, heartaching memories of Castle making her a thousand scrambled eggs here, his body at the stove and his sleeves rolled up, trying to engage her in stupid conversation just so she'd stop feeling so frustratingly broken.

"The difference in his DNA seems to be translating to the replicating virus as well," Dr Threkeld continued.

"That's what's making the pneumonia tough to get a handle on," Boyd offered. "We're dealing with a new strain - in essence."

"Because it came in contact with Castle's mutated red blood cells," she said hollowly. From here she could see the barn where they'd sneaked up to the hayloft and picnicked and made love the moment she'd healed.

"It shouldn't be possible," Dr Threkeld mused. "It's strange that the virus has somehow incorporated the red blood cells own... I'm sorry. These are merely curiosities. I can assure you, ma'am, that we are doing everything possible for your husband."

She nodded abstractedly, found it hard to hold on to anything they were saying. Super pneumonia, malformed red blood cells, a virus that was taking Castle's own strange DNA and using it against him.

"But we can be rest assured that - in its mutated form - this virus isn't any more communicable or deadly to the rest of us. Continue to wash your hands, don't swap bodily fluids - you should be fine."

She let out a slow breath and rubbed her palms on her scrub pants. At least if Castle woke she could put his heart at ease. He'd been so grief-stricken at the thought of her catching it because she refused to leave his side.

If he woke.

"For now, we'll continue to keep Mr. Rodgers sedated and try a broad-spectrum antiviral treatment, monitoring him closely. I feel positive that this will ensure his recovery."

What it came down to, she realized, was that they were going to throw everything at him and hope it worked.

Why she couldn't feel the same positiveness, she didn't know.

Maybe she'd always felt there would be consequences for loving a spy, for taking him from the perfect plan his father had set up for him, for making him love her back - and now the other shoe had dropped.

This was their reckoning. She was afraid the price was too high for her to bear.

* * *

"We're walking a fine line with sedation," Dr Boyd told her. He'd donned a mask to talk to Beckett inside Castle's room, but he'd let her know it was for her husband's sake, not for his own. Castle's lungs were vulnerable to other diseases now as well. Especially a bacterial infection.

"You're stopping the sedative?" Kate asked, unable to keep from rubbing her fingers over the crook of Castle's arm. The soft place at his elbow where the IV line went in was sticky from tape and bruised from the needle. "What will that do to him?"

"If he gets too much, then we've depressed his system - which means it's harder for him to breathe. But if he doesn't get enough, then he wakes and panics. We're going to cut back on the sedative and watch him carefully."

"Okay," she said, but it was hardly an agreement. She had no idea what the right choice was, what he needed. She felt like it was spinning out of her control.

Dr Boyd had already adjusted the IV, done something to it, and she watched Castle's face anxiously.

"Mrs. Rodgers, he should be fine. He might wake, but I doubt he'd be very alert."

"Thank you," she said automatically. Boyd patted her shoulder but it wasn't condescending; she had a poignant wish for her father right now, to have Jim sit vigil with her. She couldn't call him though; she'd told him about Castle's fall into the lake, but back then it was just a little cold.

And her father wasn't allowed to know about Stone Farm, wasn't allowed to come here either. Calling him wouldn't help, and yet...

Kate stood from her chair and pushed back, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Are you - here for a minute? I need to-" Kate gestured to the door and Boyd nodded his go ahead.

She slipped away from the man and pushed outside, digging a hand into her back pocket for her phone. She didn't have reception, and she doubted that was because she was out of cell service. Castle had brought her a new phone when she'd been laid up here; he'd had to get it from the Office.

She checked her settings and messed with the wifi until she remembered. It was a hidden network, and she had to know the IP address in order to access it. Kate growled and stepped back inside the room.

Dr Boyd glanced up at her.

"Can I borrow your phone? I don't have the network here."

"I can't; I'm sorry. Rules, you know," he said softly. "Ragle's in his office downstairs though. He'll get it working for you."

Kate nodded and went out again, stepped quickly down the hallway to the stairs. She didn't want to leave Castle, but she needed her father's calm assurances. The way his voice could settle her.

When she found Ragle, the man had no trouble setting up the network on her phone; he didn't even hesitate. She held her breath until it was working and then she gave him the courtesy of an explanation, a heads-up just in case.

"I want to call my father. A New York number. He's not in the Agency."

"He's already on the approved list, Agent Beckett. From your time here before."

"Oh," she said, relief cascading through her limbs. She sank back against the wall and pressed her phone to her chest, fought hard to keep it out of her voice. "Thank you."

"No problem," Ragle said, and then he stood up from his desk. "Why don't you use my office? I've got perimeter cheeks to make."

She didn't even get to say thank you before he'd already left her alone to her phone call. And if she was honest, probably a good cry too.

* * *

"Well, what about that Saber guy?" her father said. "You try talking to him?"

Kate groaned and sank down to the floor, pressing the phone against her ear. "Dad."

"I know you said he was insufferable, Katie, but it sounds like he was with Rick when he was on this stuff. This regimen stuff."

She sighed, closing her eyes. "I don't want to."

"Katie."

"He - he's part of this. What Black did to Rick. I can't stand to..."

"You'll do what you have to do, sweetheart."

"Dad."

"All right, I'll shut up. Can you tell me where you guys are? I'd like to be there for you both."

She covered her eyes with a hand and pressed her lips together. "I don't know if... Actually. I'll ask the guy in charge here; he can give you a secure ride."

"A secure ride?" her father said, amusement in his voice. "All right. I'm not sure what I can do to help, but you could use a friendly face."

"I'd like you here. I'll get it set up and let you know."

"Better get back to Rick. Call me when you know more."

"I will. Thanks, Dad."

She ended the call and tilted her head back against the wall of Ragle's office, but her father's suggestion wouldn't leave her.

Call Saber and find out what he knew about the regimen.

* * *

"Oh, you're here."

The words rumbled up from his chest and out from behind the mask. Kate jerked her head up and saw Castle awake, barely, his eyes drooping even as he stared at her. His hand fumbled at her, lifted haphazardly to clutch at her shirt, curling his fingers at her collar.

Kate leaned in closer and kissed his forehead, taking his hand in hers. "I'm here. You awake?"

He coughed and turned his head away; the sound of his breathing made her fingers tighten around his.

"How you feel?" she murmured when it was over.

He blinked slowly and shifted his eyes back to hers, but she saw he wasn't quite with her.

"It's okay," she soothed. Him or herself, she wasn't quite sure. "I'm here. Ragle even sent a car for my dad, so he's here too. In the kitchen. How's that for special treatment?"

He grunted but it turned into another hacking cough, and his body surged forward, bent double at the waist as his lungs tried to expel the terrible build-up of fluid. His hand came up to knock away the mask, but she gripped his wrist hard.

"No, Rick. Hey, you're okay," she said, rising to stand at his side, her hand at his wrist, another at his shoulder. "You need to leave this on, love. We've got the oxygen turned up so it's getting there, I promise. You gotta sit back for me."

She could feel him struggling against his own instincts, and finally he eased back to the bed, his face red with exertion and eyes wild. He was more awake now, that was for sure, but she kept her hands on him, let him know she was there. His breath fogged the mask as he exhaled hard.

"Breathe," he gasped at her.

"I know. I know," she said, stroking the side of his face, easing a finger under the mask to relieve the constant press of it against his skin. "It feels like you can't breathe. But you _are_ getting oxygen, Rick. I promise. You have to fight that feeling, let the mask deliver oxygen or they'll have to put you back on the breathing machine."

"No," he rasped. "No."

"Then keep calm, okay? It feels like you can't breathe, I know, baby. But it's only your body's instinctive response to the build up in your lungs. Just stay calm and the mask will deliver the oxygen you need. Okay?"

His hand was clutching hard at her shirt and she eased her fingers in between his, took his grip and brought his knuckles to her mouth. She wasn't sure how much was registering with him, how much he understood. They'd been here only a few days now, but he wasn't getting better. He was only off the breathing machine because Dr Boyd didn't want him sedated for that long.

His fingers squeezed hers hard. "What's - going on?"

She couldn't help taking a moment to stare back into the murky blue of his eyes, melted and fuzzy with drugged weariness, with sickness. "We've been here two days. You're on some pretty strong anti-viral medication right now and they're giving you a high percentage of oxygen. You're off sedation, so no breathing machine, but they're still trying to find a way to combat the pneumonia."

One of his hands roamed and fumbled at his ribs; she caught his fingers and shook her head.

"Chest tube is still in, baby. Fluid on your lungs. It's caused a partial collapse of both inferior lobes, but as soon as they stop filling with fluid, Dr Threkeld says they should both reinflate."

She didn't tell him that he might also have permanent damage to his lungs. She couldn't think much further than getting them both through this hour, let alone the hazy future.

He sucked in a breath that sounded weak, and his fingers squeezed against her hand. She leaned in and combed through his bangs again, couldn't stop touching him. His eyes followed her movements but they were fever-bright and so blue against the pale of his skin. He'd lost a lot of weight in the last few weeks - more than she'd realized. His chest was a sunken ship in the beachhead of his body, his jaw as prominent as a cliff.

"Kate," he croaked. His hand dragged hers to his chest, pressing her down against the rapid thump of his heart. "Love you."

"Oh, God," she moaned, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. "Stop it. Don't - don't do that."

He couldn't start talking to her like he might not _make_ it.

"But," he rasped out, his fingers flexing. His other hand came clumsily to the back of her head, hardly gentle. "But still. Still love you."

"You're going to make it," she told him fiercely. Because she couldn't fathom a life without him. Because she absolutely wouldn't do this life without him.

"You love me back?" he husked.

She lifted her head with a held-back cry but saw the desperately trying laughter in his eyes. How he _tried_ for her.

She brought his hand to her lips and held it there, a never-ending kiss. "Still love you, too, super spy."

"Not so super anymore." His smile was lopsided and blurred behind the mask but it was there. She held on to that.

_Not so super anymore._

Was that the problem?


	12. Chapter 12

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

"Dad," she said in a breath of relief. She stood and went to him, wrapping her arms around him, and Jim immediately held her up. It wasn't like she hadn't seen him when he'd arrived, but there was something about the loneliness of the room when Castle was unconscious.

"Katie, honey," her dad murmured at her ear. "This is a pretty terrible Christmas, huh?"

"Shit, it's Christmas," she muttered, closing her eyes.

He didn't say anything more. Didn't try to say it would all be perfectly fine. If anyone understood what she faced right now, it was him.

But she pulled herself away with a quick look towards Castle; he'd been unconscious since an attack of coughing had sapped him of his strength. She pulled her father towards Castle's bed and nudged him towards the chair.

"I need you to stay with him for a little while." She cast another anxious glance to Castle. "Can you do that?"

"Of course, Katie. Where will you be?"

"Saber won't answer when I call. Boyd and Threkeld are trying to figure this thing out, but... I don't want to pull them off their research just for a wild goose chase."

"This is the doctor who was with Castle before? Saber?"

"Yeah," she said, her throat tightening. "I think... I don't know. I'm exhausted and it feels like my brain is broken, but I need to figure this out. I have to."

"I can stay," her father said. "You go, do what you have to."

"He's um... " Kate rubbed her forehead and stared blankly at Castle's inert form. "He's upright to keep his chest from filling with fluid, but still it gets pretty bad." She moved mechanically towards the oxygen canister and tapped the valve. "You can open this up for more oxygen and it helps. Just keep him calm, mostly. If he wakes..."

"I'll tell him you're with the doctor." Jim clasped her hand, patted it. "You can do it, Kate."

"I'll have to get down on my knees and grovel, I'm sure, but if he can at all shed light on this, it's worth it."

* * *

Mitchell had been waiting for her outside a Range Rover that looked suspiciously like their own, but he hadn't said a word to her, only remotely unlocked the doors in invitation.

She hadn't said anything either, but she'd gotten into the passenger seat and promptly fallen asleep. She'd only woken when Mitchell had turned off the engine.

It was four hours later and she felt like a husk, rattling around dry and aching. "We there?" They'd stopped at the top of a rise, a series of corrugated metal buildings in the valley below; she didn't even know if they were still in New York. Maybe it was Pennsylvania.

"We're here," Mitchell said. "Saber was a hard man to find. But Malone and your guy - Ryan? - they got it done."

She unfolded herself from the passenger seat, opened the door to slide out. Mitchell reached over and gripped her by the upper arm, his fingers like steel.

"You know why I did this."

"You thought you were doing the right thing," she said, the best acceptance she could give him.

"In a regular hospital, you'd have been sitting ducks, Kate."

He never called her Kate. Hardly ever, anyway. She paused with her hand on the door and cleared her throat, tried to find an ounce of forgiveness. "You get me Saber, and you get Saber to tell me the truth about the regimen, then we'll see."

"Castle would understand."

"Maybe so," she acknowledged. "But he's dying." Her words were flat and lifeless; she felt sucked dry by the last few days. She wanted only to lie down and sleep for another four hours beside her husband, his body around her like a wall, his easy breathing a thing they both took for granted.

"He's not going to die," Mitchell said quickly, getting out of the driver's seat before she even had the chance to move. When she landed on the crunching dead grass of the rise where they'd parked, Mitchell was drawing his weapon and heading for the Quonset hut nestled in the valley below.

"Mitch," she called after him. "A plan?"

"No plan. I'm going to get this wily bastard and he's going to tell us how to save Castle's life."

His determination bit hard in her, shook the cobwebs and papier mache plastered over her heart. She fumbled at the still-open passenger door and popped open the glove compartment.

Just like Castle's, there was an extra gun in its depths, waiting for her. She pulled it out, checked the safety and the clip, and then she followed after Mitchell into the Christmas twilight. She realized she hadn't even asked Mitchell if he had other plans, if he'd been celebrating the holiday somewhere with someone.

She didn't know if she could care. They needed a Christmas miracle here.

* * *

It was a clumsy and painful raiding party they made, but Saber was a doctor and - judging by his work station - a researcher, not a trained agent. After breaking a few things, Mitchell shoved Saber back into a recliner that had seen better days and put the barrel of his weapon against the man's temple.

Saber clammed up, his eyes roving furiously around the lab even as Beckett thoroughly inspected test tubes and equipment. She didn't know why she'd thought he'd have a syringe neatly labeled _regimen_ lying around, but she even cracked open the biohazard-stickered glass-door fridge and poked through the stuff in there.

She was being a little careless, she knew, but she couldn't not look.

"All right," she said finally, turning away from a fruitless search. "We need him."

"Need me for _what_?" Saber said, venom in his voice. "I tried to help you, help Richard. But you had me tossed on my ass when we got to Stone Farm."

"The regimen," Beckett said tonelessly. All that rage and determination she'd siphoned off Mitchell had gone flat again, her body numb. Breaking things, coming in guns blazing, no plan - that had felt good for a minute, to have action and something to do, but now it was like part of her was shut off. Shut down.

He was dying. She found it so hard to _care_ about anything else. Her soul was back there at Stone Farm and she was just a lifeless thing, walking around, a golem.

He was dying and she'd done all of it wrong, everything. She'd sent him back outside for some stupid firewood, even knowing he probably had a cold. She hadn't been paying attention last week when he'd retreated to bed earlier and earlier in the evenings until finally he'd given in and gone to the CIA doc at the Office. Not even the canister of oxygen than he'd starting using had made her see, made her understand how bad it'd gotten.

How _bad_ it had gotten.

"Beckett."

She turned hollow eyes to Mitchell and he flinched. He still had his weapon on Saber. She focused again.

"Tell us what you've done to him," she said finally. "The regimen. What you and his father did to him."

"We made him strong."

"Well, he's not strong now. He's dying," she said. If she said it enough times, would it start feeling less like an axe blow to her chest? Less like her bones were breaking and spilling marrow out inside her? She was going to break.

"_We_ made him strong; _you_ made him weak."

She sank down on top of the work table inside the cold concrete and metal of the Quonset hut, her eyes scanning the rows of equipment, the lab, the chattering and frightened animals in their cages.

She glanced down at the gun in her hand and carefully ejected the clip once more, checked it again, slid it home. She stood and came calmly towards Saber, raised her weapon so that his eyes narrowed and crossed on the point of the barrel.

"How do I make him strong again?" she asked artlessly. She didn't even have words to argue, to make excuses for herself, to defend. All her usual craft, the interrogation techniques she'd honed had deserted her. She had only the rattle of Castle's last breaths in her ears and the certainty that she could kill a man to save his life.

"You can never make him strong," Saber hissed.

"I will shoot you," she said quietly and tracked her gun down to his knee.

"You wouldn't-"

She pulled the trigger and he screamed. The sound caromed off the metal walls, crashing and echoing in her ears. She shifted the weapon to aim at his other knee.

Beside her, Mitchell was very very still.

"How do I make him strong again?"

"You fucking bitch." Saber groaned, but there was pain in it, deep pain, and betrayal, the sounds of a man who had never known a bullet wound before, a man who had assumed he was invincible because of his friends. "You damn-"

She kicked at the leg that was already wounded and he screamed again. She'd shattered his kneecap; he wouldn't walk again without extensive surgery and therapy. In fact, he might be bleeding to death.

It was hard to care.

"How do I make him strong again?"

But she already knew. She knew, and the knowledge in her was like a weight.

"You fucking shot me, and now you want me to _help_ you? I wouldn't help you if Black came in here and told me to himself." Saber was snarling at her now, and she knew he didn't have it, not anymore, knew now that Black had cut him out of the elite circle, cut him off, and he was bitter, and alone, and no help to her at all.

No wonder he'd lorded it over her in the ambulance, no wonder he seethed at her now with rage and rejoicing, despite the wound.

"You don't have it?" she asked. "Then I don't need you."

And she drew her gun up to aim at his throat.

* * *

"Beckett," Mitchell said, but he didn't move to stop her.

She felt it in her like certainty, like the heavy weight of grief. She let out a breath and squeezed-

"No. Wait. _Wait_. I can get you - I know what it is. What the regimen did. You need me. I know where to get more."

"Where?" she said, and though her finger eased from the trigger, she didn't lower the gun. "Where do I find more? Will it save him?"

"I don't know - he's never been off the regimen this long before. We administered the drugs and he never had any problem until _you_."

"Where is it?" she asked again, but she knew that if she thought about it long enough, she'd know. She already knew where to find it, but her mind kept shying away from it. Black. God, she didn't want to-

"There're caches of those injections left all over," Saber bit out. "Bastard wanted it available at a moment's notice."

"What are you talking about?" Her stance faltered. She'd assumed he would point her to Black, that all roads led back to Castle's father, but Saber's words didn't make sense.

"Fucking field dress me, bitch, or I will bleed to death and you will have _nothing_."

"So?"

"So I know who made the regimen. I know where to get more."

"I don't believe you," Mitchell cut in, stepping between her and Saber. "If you knew anything, you wouldn't be out here, defenseless, unprotected. Abandoned. What happened Saber? He toss you overboard like dead weight?"

Kate stumbled back and stared at the blood staining the chair, the dark soak of it in the fabric.

She'd shot him in the knee at close range and he was dying.

Oh God.

The gun dropped out of her hands and she scooped down to pick it up, everything trembling; she had to swallow back bile as it rushed up her throat, and faintly she realized that Mitchell was pressing their advantage.

"If you'd had it, or had access to it, Black wouldn't have let us get to you, would he? He wouldn't have left you out here to rot, you miserable wreck. I smell alcohol on your breath. I smelled it on you in that ambulance too. You're washed up, Saber. No one needs you anymore."

Washed up. Alcohol. That's what had set her off in the ambulance, what had made her loathe him on sight. She'd been concentrating on Castle, but her instincts about Saber were based on that damn conditioned response to an alcoholic.

"I know things. I know all about her husband. I know what we did to him. I know how we pushed him, how we broke his DNA and remade it, how we used genetics before people even _knew_ what genetics were."

"The regimen did it - the regimen can do it again. Black was right to kick you to the curb, you pathetic old man. You've wrecked yourself playing your stupid power games. The Agency could have used a smart guy in research, but instead you went down a dark hole that you'll never get free of."

Kate lowered the gun to the table, pressed her hand over her eyes. Castle was _dying_ and what was she doing here? There had to be something, had to be something to help him, to save him. It had to be here. She had _shot_ a man.

"You need me. _He _needs me. He'll wish he never left me out of things. I'll show him."

Caches of injections all over the world did her no good right _now._ A bitter old man in his damn laboratory wouldn't help Castle _breathe_.

This was all for nothing. The blood on the recliner, the doctor's frenzied ranting, the broken glass at her feet. Nothing.

She walked out of the Quonset hut.

* * *

Both Mitchell and Saber - especially - looked shocked as hell when she came back inside with the medical kit from the back. All the CIA vehicles had them; it had been a shot in the dark, but she hadn't known what else to do.

Mitchell stepped aside and let her field dress Saber's knee; she felt her hands ungentle and matter of fact about the wound, felt the doctor's flinches and grunts as she manipulated the ragged edges. The bullet was lodged in the fine splinters of his kneecap, the whole thing pulverized, and she used sterile tweezers to work it free.

By that time, Saber had passed out and the smell of his bowels and his fear, the blood and what she'd done was heavy in the back of her throat. She'd vomited in the dead grass outside the Quonset hut on her way out, and she'd probably throw up again if she had any energy left.

"Beckett," Mitch started.

"Pass me that," she said quietly, reaching for the packet of WoundSeal. He handed it over and she ripped it open, poured the powder over the meaty tear. The polymer would bind and create a kind of scab, clotting the blood.

"That won't work on a bullet wound," Mitchell warned. "Not for long."

"I don't know what else to do." She pressed on the skin with shaking hands and willed it down, everything, pushed it down until this was over. She could cry in one of King's chairs when this was done and Castle was healthy again. Until then, she had to fucking limit the damage.

The powder was starting to form a seal.

"I'll take him back to the Office, get him into surgery," Mitch said. "You..."

"I'll stay here. Call Ragle for a ride."

"No, I'll send Ryan up to you-"

"No," she rasped, her heart breaking in her chest. "No. Don't."

"New York is closer than Stone Farm. Let me _send_-"

"Not Ryan," she repeated, keeping pressure on the wound. It was a mess; he wouldn't survive. She'd killed the man, surely. "Send Esposito."

"All right," Mitchell said slowly. "And then?"

She shook her head, the despair crushing her smaller, smaller. She wanted to crawl back into bed with Castle but her hands were bloodied.

Her father was waiting back there too.

"God," she moaned, her hands accidentally shifting. The seal had tightened the skin, blood ran down the man's bare shin. He still had his black dress socks pulled up over his calves, bare now where she'd had to cut away his pants to get at the wound. It had been a sloppy shot, unthinking; she'd done it because he was in her way.

He was in her way.

No other thought.

"I don't want to do this anymore," she whispered.

Mitchell kneeled down and tried to take over for her, not understanding. She shook her head and kept up the pressure, doing the best she could to make it right.

"WoundSeal isn't going to-"

"Mitchell," she growled. "Just - drive fast."

"I don't think I should leave you here."

"I'll take a closer look around the lab." Pray for forgiveness. Make it right somehow.

Mitchell finally stood, his hand going to his phone. He'd already holstered his weapon and she saw he'd taken hers as well. Her hands were sticky against the skin of Saber's knee.

WoundSeal powder against a gunshot was a terrible idea, but it wasn't like she could stitch up the mess of his knee. At least this way, whatever arteries she'd nicked would be sealed over as well.

Maybe he'd make it.

She heard Mitchell making the call and she finally let her fingers ease from compressing the wound; the sealant held.

She let out a long breath and stood once more, scanning the place for a sink.

She had to wash her hands.

* * *

Castle felt the heaviness throughout his chest weighing him down, but the confusion outside his head tugged him upwards. Sounds and a conversation, the door opening and closing, a hand, warm bodies, but when he finally opened his eyes, he realized his wife was there. She was crying.

"Kate."

His voice came out like sandpaper. She turned her head in the shelter of her father's arms and his stomach fell out.

"Kate?"

She slipped out of her father's embrace and came to him, her fingers brushing against her cheeks, but it didn't stem the tide. He struggled to reach for her, his lungs laboring for breath, his vision swimming with blackness, but he couldn't - he couldn't fail her now.

She hovered for a moment at his side, still swiping at tears, but he had the feeling it was nothing about him. His voice was gone completely now, wouldn't work no matter how much he swallowed. She used her thumb to slide under her eyelid; the tears dripped down the back of her hand and to her wrist.

Castle forced his arm up and snagged her fingers. He tugged though he knew he didn't have the strength to pull her down to him. She came anyway, pressing her wet cheeks into his neck, her breath ragged.

"Love," he mouthed at her forehead. Propped up in the bed to breathe, he could at least keep her close, keep her with him. She sank into the mattress, her hip knocking into his, a hasty and tear-choked apology in her voice.

He couldn't use his words to beg her, couldn't make her explain. He glanced past her to Jim Beckett, saw the man standing at the foot of the bed with his brow furrowed and his arms crossed. No help; he must not know anything either.

Castle was so tired. It was hard to keep his arm up around her, but she needed him and he couldn't do a whole hell of a lot right now - not even breathe properly - so he was damn well going to hold her while she cried.

He squeezed the back of her neck in question, nudged his mouth into her temple again. His lungs felt like they'd been encased in steel, impossible to expand, but he hung on to her.

Kate finally pulled back, one of her hands on his chest, the other still wiping away tears, but she looked at least marginally less broken. Her eyes wouldn't meet his though.

"I... did something. I hurt someone. Badly."

At the foot of the bed, Jim Beckett began to come forward, raising a hand to Kate's shoulder. "Honey, what happened?"

"Saber. I - I... don't know what happened. I shot him. Mitchell took him back to the Office to see if he could be saved, but... he knew about the regimen and I shot him."

Castle couldn't figure out what the tears were about, couldn't understand the story that was coming out of her mouth. It didn't connect; she didn't do those things. She didn't shoot people.

"Katie." There was no censure in her father's voice, but his brows were still furrowed. Castle still couldn't catch the threads of the conversation - confession? - so he kept his hand on Kate's neck and tried to keep her close.

She was explaining to her father, her head turned away from him. Her words were like slippery fish in the stream of all that went on around him, and he realized his arm was falling. He couldn't keep hold of her.

"He said Castle needs the regimen. He said Black kept it everywhere, but that it - I don't know. He's been doing this for so long..."

Regimen. The regimen, right. Her father had told him, when he'd woken once, that she'd gone to ask Dr Saber about it. He had never seen Saber that he could remember, but maybe the guy was the evil mad scientist behind all this. Hard to know; harder still to keep conscious.

He felt it dragging out of him, felt the rattle in his chest as his breath was trapped on all the sharp edges of his ribs.

His arm dropped and his hand tangled in the crook of her arm. She turned back to him and her fingers brushed over the side of his face. She was talking now to him, but he was stuck on the regimen.

"Kate," he rasped.

She paused, her father too, and he wondered if maybe he'd dropped out of consciousness for a moment there. He swallowed to clear his throat, took a deeper breath in so that his chest expanded.

Shit, it was getting harder to fill his lungs.

He lifted his hand and pushed aside the mask, causing a strangled noise to come out of Kate's mouth. But he grunted and pulled his head back.

"Regimen," he grumbled out. Already he was breathless and he let the mask fall back, the black spots swimming in his eyes again. He took a few hits of oxygen, wondered how high it was now, how much he had left before even that wasn't enough. "I stopped taking it."

Kate's fingers stroked along his neck. "I know, love. I know. It's not... we'll just have to figure this out."

"No. Meant... meant stopped - I stopped, but he kept giving it to me."

"The injections?" she asked.

"The... yeah." He had to close his eyes to regain his strength, had to really _concentrate._ It was so difficult now to get the words out. He sucked in another breath and pushed aside the mask. "Got a collection going. Threw em out some-sometimes. Not all."

"Wait." She leaned in over him; he felt the bed shift and the pressure on his lungs, so he opened his eyes and stared at her. "Castle. Do you mean you _have_ those injections still?"

"If they're - still there," he husked. Something tight was pinching his lungs like claws; he felt panic crawling up his throat and couldn't push it down. "Kate."

She jerked away from him, adjusted the mask over his face again. "Sorry, sorry. I was leaning on you. God. Castle, breathe. Just breathe. You'll be okay, it's okay."

He found her eyes with his and held on, realized his fingers were digging into the crook of her arm. Strange things were happening in his chest, things falling apart and caving in, and the sensation of being filled with water up to his nose made him jerk.

"No, no, love. I don't want them to sedate you again. Come on, breathe. Breathe."

He realized he was trying to reach for her only when Jim's hand came around his and held it. The mask was sucked down against his face because he was panting, and then Kate's palm came to his cheek and her fingers stroked.

"Breathe, Castle. Breathe."

But there wasn't any breath.

* * *

Her father dragged her out of the room even though she tried to fight him. But Logan shoved on her harder and she tumbled back.

"Let us work on him, Kate. Let us do our jobs."

She gasped another breath and pressed her hand into her eyes, tried to tell herself that he wasn't going to die; he wasn't dying right this second. Not yet, not this. He just needed more oxygen.

Her father was a strong wall around her, keeping her contained, and though he didn't try to tell her a lot of nonsense, or comfort her with ridiculous platitudes, the fierceness of the way he held her reminded Kate that she could stand.

She could. It took everything in her, but she was on her feet.

Logan came out of the room and stopped. "We're going to suction his lungs, Kate. The fluid is building too rapidly, so we're just going to go in there and clean him out. Okay?"

She blinked and stepped away from her father. "Clean - clean him out?"

"I need your permission to do this, Beckett."

"Yes. Right. Of course. Please, anything."

Logan nodded sharply and went back down the hall, apparently to get some equipment. She watched as the door opened once more and Boyd stepped out, his hands gloved and mask on; beyond him Dr Threkeld was reading an ultrasound machine that was apparently scanning Castle's lungs.

Jim's hand came to hers and squeezed; she felt herself swaying but locked her knees, battling the dizziness that was second nature. She couldn't pass out, not now. Logan came back rolling a cart and Boyd held the door for him, and then the door was closed and she and her father were alone in the hallway again.

"Kate."

She turned her head slowly to her father, eyebrows furrowing. "Dad?"

"Rick said that he kept it. Some of it. That he didn't throw it away."

She blinked. "I... yes. He - said if it's still there."

"Where's there?"

She opened her mouth but nothing came out.


	13. Chapter 13

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

"We've sedated him again, cleaned out his lungs. He's breathing much easier, but the fluid has been building up fast," Logan told her. He was calm, but that tease he always had in his eyes was banked and gone.

Christmas seemed so far gone. She'd searched everywhere and nowhere, wracked her brain to think where he might have stored regimen, hiding it like a child who didn't want to eat his vegetables. She was worn out with that wild hope of possible discovery and the swift, terrible crash back to earth. He hadn't been conscious since Christmas.

"What happens next?" she said, voice scraping. Her father sat beside her in the chairs near Castle's bed and she kept her hand on her husband's, unable to let go.

"We'll keep suctioning him. The chest tube stays to drain what it can, and then we'll remove it and put the scope down his lungs, suction him again. It's... not fun for him. So he'll stay sedated until..."

"Until?" Jim said.

"Until we find anti-virals that work. Until we can kick this thing in the ass," Logan said fiercely.

Kate gave him a weak grin in gratitude for his determination, but it was thin. She felt like she was fraying out to nothing.

"If we find those injections," Jim said slowly.

Kate turned to him in astonishment. Like they hadn't spent the last week scouring New York for them.

He nodded to Logan. "What will that do to him that the anti-virals can't?"

"I have... no idea. Theoretically, we'd test it out on a few samples, see what happens." Logan shrugged and looked to Kate.

"Find the injections," she repeated.

"He said he saved them," her father insisted.

"But... I don't... he said he put them somewhere but Dad... it's impossible. I've been _everywhere._"

"So look again," Jim said. As if it were no big deal. As if she hadn't emptied herself out looking.

Her phone rang suddenly in the room and she startled, yanked it out of her pocket to see Mitchell's ID. She answered with her heart in her throat, her eyes on Castle.

"It's Beckett."

"Beckett, looks like Saber needs another surgery. Esposito is back here at the Office and he and Ryan are going to dig through the stuff we took from Saber's place. But-"

"Yeah," she breathed, closing her eyes.

"Doesn't look like he'll be talking any time soon," he finished.

"Thanks, Mitch."

"For what?"

"Driving fast," she whispered, and then she ended the call. She opened her eyes to see Castle still sedated in the bed. "Okay."

"Okay?" her father said.

"I'll look again."

At least it was something to do. She couldn't keep sitting here, watching him die.

* * *

Ryan and Esposito met her at the brownstone on Broome Street, already inside when she came in the front door. She'd disarmed the alarm from her phone for them and she saw Esposito had a pair of her underwear held up by a pen in her living room, his eyebrow raised.

"Espo," she sighed.

"I found this in the couch cushions."

"Do I need to _explain _how it got there?" she muttered. But it'd done the job. The black cloud of numbing grief had thinned at the look on his face combined with her panties swinging from his pen, and she yanked them down, stuffed them back into the couch. "Obviously not what we're looking for. I've been all over this place, but maybe another couple passes might give us something new."

Ryan came in from the kitchen. "Your war room was open down there," he said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "Fancy."

"Anything?" she asked.

"Not that I could tell. Medkits are all normal stuff, though I did find an... interesting? pair of handcuffs."

Kate rolled her eyes at them. "Seriously, guys."

"Seriously, I found purple fuzzy-"

She glared Ryan into silence and though the tips of his ears were pink, he and Espo exchanged pretty pleased looks. She knew they were worried about her, but this was the closest they were going to get to outright asking after her.

She split off from them and headed upstairs, searched their bedroom alone even though every touch and every item was riddled with a thousand memories - and a hundred previous searches this past week. She went into the bathroom and scanned the products they'd accumulated, but her eyes kept going to the mirror where she'd left him dirty messages and she wondered why she hadn't said more often _I love you_ when she knew he needed to hear it.

Why hadn't she-

"Beckett!"

She was yanked out of her thoughts by Espo's call, and she crashed into the door frame as she tried to get to him. But he was only in the hallway, surveying the lonely extra bedroom. She realized lamely that she hadn't called Carrie to explain why Sasha had been unceremoniously dumped in her lap again, hadn't let the woman know what was even going on. Weeks now and she'd barely done anything other than breathe.

"Espo?" she asked.

"I got nothing," he muttered. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the empty room once more, and she wondered if he saw what she did. He couldn't possibly. Every wish and hope she and Caslte had dreamed together was caught up in this room - where Sasha liked to bed down at night, where they'd carefully not installed furniture so they could put an entirely different set inside its pale walls.

"I don't think it's here," she sighed. Ryan was coming up the steps now to join them, a careful sympathy on his face. Like he couldn't help feeling sad for them, like he knew he was seeing the end of something.

This couldn't be the end.

"Walk us through this - fresh eyes," Esposito said. "Just tell us what he told you. One more time."

"He said he kept some," she repeated back, closing her eyes to recall the exact moment. The strain of his voice through the mud of his lungs, the crawling panic behind his eyes. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. "Said if it was still there..."

"Well, he didn't move it into your house then," Ryan said quickly.

She opened her eyes. "Why do you say that?"

"If it was still there? He squirreled it away somewhere that he hasn't been back to since he left the injections there. Right? That's what that sounds like to me."

Oh.

Esposito was nodding his head tersely. "That's exactly what that means. It's not going to be here, where he'd see it."

"But what about a box in the closet or... I don't know."

"Naw, Beckett, this is a guy. We don't have boxes in the closet labeled _regimen_ or some shit. And he's a spy. He's definitely not going to keep mementos hanging around from a past he was trying to buck."

She hadn't thought of it like that, actually. Castle kept plenty of little strange things - her detective's notebook, that black hood from the holding center, the drawing done of her in Versailles when she'd made a scene as he recovered the flash drive. And yes, sigh, those fuzzy purple cuffs she'd given to him as a joke. But she knew of nothing at all that was from his time before her. Nothing he'd picked up in Marakkesh, no ebony-handled knives or carved walking sticks like her grandfather'd had from his days stationed overseas during the war.

"Okay," she admitted. "So... not here, not close by. Because he said he's not sure if it's still there."

"It'd be someplace he hasn't gone back to since... well since he stopped taking the regimen after every mission."

"Well, but that was my old apartment," she said, her hope sinking. "It was blown up."

"Obviously he didn't mean that either," Esposito said. "His lungs might be rattling, but his brain's not. He knows everything was toast at your old place. Somewhere else. Is there a training center that he went to or a mission debrief holding station or-"

"Oh, holy fuck. His safe house," she groaned.

"He had a safe house?" Ryan asked. "Where is that? We talking upstate or DC or something?"

"No. His apartment here in the city," she murmured, turning it over in her mind.

"Wait. What?" Esposito came towards her as if he wanted to shake her for more information. She realized her brain was sluggish, that she might have thought of this before if she'd gotten more sleep lately.

"When he - after the bomb went off at my place, that's where I stayed. At his apartment. It's the end of the red line," she added, feeling like her tongue was useless and her thoughts were too crowded. She was trying to remember if she'd ever - if there had ever been a time when she'd really _looked_ through his place. She'd been so destroyed, barely holding herself together back then, and he hadn't been back there in so long anyway...

"All right, let's go. Harlem, right?" Esposito said quickly. "I've got the company car outside. Come on."

He was already hustling her back down the stairs, herding her towards the door. She had a last look at the stained glass so brilliant in the late afternoon sun before Ryan yanked the door closed. She barely had time to arm the alarm as she was swept into the backseat of Espo's car, the boys' excitement over a new clue in the treasure hunt finally beginning to worm its way inside her.

Could it really be that easy? Search his old CIA safe house and find the regimen?

She wanted to believe.

* * *

The place was ghostly. They'd passed the park - just as she remembered it - the back entrance they had both used at one time or another to get past the CIA surveillance, and she remembered with a shudder that the apartment was wired for lights and sound.

"There are cameras," she told the boys. "So watch yourselves. Black used them to spy on Castle. And me."

"Shit, that is one fucked up relationship," Esposito muttered, moving past her for the bedroom. Ryan was shaking his head as he started in the living room, but there just wasn't much to look through.

She headed for the guest bathroom off the hall, perfectly willing to never again see the inside of the master bath. She knew a CIA team had come in and cleaned the place top to bottom, scrubbing out every last drop of her blood and shard of glass, but she didn't need those memories crowding in all the others.

The guest bathroom was stark. A lone plastic shower curtain that was pristine white, evidently new, and the sink was bare. No soap, no toothbrushes, nothing. She couldn't remember if Castle had allowed the Company to use the apartment as a safe house again, but she didn't think so. He'd appropriated it years ago to have a place to go when he was off mission, but he'd told her once that it had never really been a home.

Her apartment had been his home; he'd moved in without even asking, just kept bringing his stuff home to her.

God, she couldn't cry. Not now. She'd had her breakdown when she'd gotten back to Stone Farm and seen her father, but this was the time to hold it together, keep going. He needed the regimen and she needed to find it.

What had he told her about it?

The smell of cleaner in his bathroom, the echo of her breathing on the cold tile - she remembered the heat of the bath and Castle sitting on the floor beside the tub, talking, talking, talking. She remembered the sound of his voice and how it rumbled, how it threaded straight through her and made her feel strong again.

He'd been on the regimen since he was five. Training and combat skills and IQ puzzles and long hours in the back of his father's car, the driver not allowed to speak to him, the flashcards he used to memorize because he wanted his father to be proud of him.

Injections. He'd had to be injected as a kid, he'd mentioned to her, but when he got older, he did it himself. Twelve hour window. Sometimes he'd put it off, testing his boundaries, but he always got the case out and swiped his skin with the alcohol swab and done it himself before time ran out.

Until one night he came home to her and just didn't. It made him tired, he'd told her; he always had to sleep afterward, couldn't hold himself up. What did he do with the case when he'd realized he'd missed his window? He'd said he had a collection going, that they'd still be there if nothing had happened to them.

Kate sank to her knees and opened the cabinet under the sink, but there was absolutely nothing inside. Twelve hours. After twelve it was no good? Had Caslte ever stopped to think that maybe he could take it later if he stuck the thing in the fridge and-

Oh.

Kate scrambled to her feet and ran back out into the kitchen, yanked open the door to the refrigerator.

The shelves were starkly empty, a bottle of water in the door next to some packets of takeout ketchup. She couldn't remember him ever eating ketchup - or anything that required ketchup - when he'd lived here.

Ryan was watching her but she shook her head. "Nothing. Just... nothing."

But she was fairly certain he _had_ used the fridge at her place. She remember distinctly now one evening coming home from a bar - she'd been out with Lanie - and finding him in her apartment, puttering around. He'd been messing in the fridge then, but he'd shut the door like nothing he wanted could be inside that box when she was standing in the entry.

He'd wrapped his arms around her and hoisted her up on the kitchen counter and they'd had sex, her head hitting the cabinets and her thighs sticking to the stainless steel. She remembered it vividly because they'd stayed all night and the next morning, and she'd called in sick because even then - even back then - she'd been missing him more than she should have, she'd been in love with him and eager to have him.

But the next day, she had been alone. She'd woken around eleven after a that lovely six a.m. wake up call and he hadn't been in her apartment. She'd thought he'd been called back, and she'd been on the brink of actually being _upset_ with him for not waking to tell her, and she'd hated herself for it, and then he'd come back in the front door with coffee and bear claws and wearing fresh clothes.

That he _must_ have gotten from this apartment. He must have come back here to grab stuff and put away whatever he'd brought back with him. Like the regimen.

He'd told her before that he kept thinking he'd come back to it, and then he just never had.

"Did you check the fridge?" Esposito said suddenly.

She startled back to awareness and saw him close the oven door. Ryan had his arms crossed over his chest and his back to them as he surveyed the living room, like he was trying to come up with more places to look.

"Yeah," she sighed. "Ketchup. I don't think it's his. Maybe the CIA has used this place for a safe house since."

"What's in the freezer?" Espo laughed. "Some frozen chicken nuggets?"

He reached past her and yanked open the door.

Only to reveal gleaming silver cases all in rows, shoved side by side and collecting frost.

The dizziness crawled up her spine and wrapped a hand around her eyes, making her vision black. She reached out and clutched the counter, stared hard at the silver cases, trying to force the blurred, black-stained streaks into some kind of image.

Esposito reached inside and tugged out one of the cases, the waft of cold air making goose bumps rise harshly on her skin. She gripped the counter to keep from falling, her vertigo so intense that she had to swallow down nausea.

Espo cracked open the silver case, and nestled in the foam lining was a packaged needle and two vials. Unlabeled, a clear fluid, but no doubt in her mind.

"That's it," she croaked. It had to be.

The regimen.

* * *

"Rick?"

Everything was a struggle, both breath and breathing, and yet he was being tugged through the densest sludge by the thin thread of his name.

In her voice.

"Rick, love, open your eyes."

And with that clear jolt, his eyes were open.

Her fingers caressed his cheeks, her hair fell forward and skimmed his chest. She dragged it back with a thoughtless hand, and he realized his lungs were clear.

They ached, but he could breathe.

"Kate," he rasped, and his breath fogged the mask. He reached up into the tangle of her arms and knocked it aside, drew in a slow, thin spool of air as he stared at her.

"Hey, there, super spy. Happy New Year."

Happy...

"Castle. Love. How you feeling?"

"Cold," he blurted out, mouth working before his brain. She sank in closer to him, her hip next to his on the bed, and her kiss against his forehead was cool, her lips chapped. "Kate?"

"You're mending," she whispered reverently against his temple. Just past her, he saw Jim Beckett asleep on a cot pushed up against the wall. Castle reached out and fumbled his fingers through her hair, brushed it back from her cheek.

"What happened? Suction?" he croaked. His throat, his voice, his lungs - everything felt scraped clean, fibrous and dry and aching.

"They were suctioning, yeah. But towards the end of it, couldn't keep up. So Boyd sedated you and they were... just.."

"I feel... better," he cautioned. His fingers were fat and strange, barely under his control, and his body was a jittery mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion.

"I found the regimen shots in your freezer. On - New Year's Eve actually."

Freezer. New Year's Eve - supposed to be _their_ holiday. New Year's Eve freezer. "Yeah, from... the old place. Safe house. Still there?" he husked. He winced as each word left his throat, like forcing knots of barbed wire up his trachea.

"It was still there," she whispered. "Logan tested it on the cultures of pneumonia and it did the trick. They still don't know how but... we injected you with most of it."

"Usually makes me... so tired," he admitted. "Can't move tired."

She nodded tightly, and her fingers still touched, along his jaw, his cheeks, dusting across his eyelids whenever they closed too long for her.

"It stopped your heart," she said softly. "Had to use paddles to get you back."

That was why the jittery feeling, the acid burning up his muscles, the sensation that he had to get up and go.

"Nothing I haven't had before," he said back to her, trying to give her a smile.

"Much as I love seeing that face," she murmured, a kiss to his mouth lightly, not pressing. "You still need the mask on, love." She lowered it over his face again, his breath fogging the clear plastic once more. He hated the suffocating feeling of it, but she looked less worried when it was on.

So he left it on.

"The cold?" he husked, his words muffled by the mask.

"Still cold? Let me get another blanket." She moved as if to go, but he shook his head and held her against him, tried to force her down.

"Just you," he said, the vowels sounds making his throat constrict. His fingers were still tangled in her hair and he used gravity to pull her head down to his chest. "Cold gone? Fluid gone?"

"Oh," she sighed, her nose turning to press into his armpit. Couldn't smell that great; he'd been sweating with fever and sickness, but she let herself lie in the bed next to him and her arm traveled around his waist. "Fluid's gone. They're doing blood tests every few hours to check on you, but it looks like the pneumonia is gone as well."

"Good," he sighed and let his eyes close. "Cause I'm really tired."

"I'll let you sleep," she whispered, her arm moving like she would leave. He grunted in disagreement and rolled slowly onto his side, awkward at this angle; he had to draw his knee up to get closer to her. She was giving him this amused, indignant look and he only squinted one eye and nuzzled closer.

"Still in recovery. You gotta stay. Right here. Make sure my fever doesn't spike."

"You don't have a fever," she whispered at his forehead.

"Whatever. Just stay."

"Of course," she promised, and her fingers began to make never-ending circles against the side of his neck.

He fell asleep.

* * *

This time when he woke, she was asleep. Jim was up and pacing at the window, and when Castle made a noise, he turned around and beamed.

"You're awake."

The way they were both acting, Jim and his daughter, it was like _awake_ was a miracle. He didn't doubt it.

"I'm getting there," he said back. Still tired. A deep tired, like he felt when he'd sat in front of the fire in Jim's cabin after he'd fallen into the lake and it had felt all the heat of him had been sucked out but also slowly rebuilding. Kate was asleep stretched out at his side, and he figured most of the heat now was because of her.

"You need anything, son?"

He tried to shake his head but it wouldn't work. "No. Just."

"Sleep, I know. I understand. I probably woke you up."

"How long's it been?" he asked.

"Since the injections? A week."

"A week?" he grunted. His lungs felt raw, but they were clear. "I slept a week?"

"Five days," Jim corrected with a shrug. "It's January 6th. Katie didn't call me until it was already Christmas."

"Glad you're here," he said. Five days asleep. No wonder Kate was pressed against his side like no one could take her away.

"Me too. You want to try some breakfast?"

"It's morning?"

"On the sixth day, yeah."

"I could eat," he said, surprised himself. His stomach twisted at the thought of food, but in a good way, a hungry and eager way. "Eggs. And toast. Coffee."

Jim was grinning and he patted Castle's shoulder. "That's more like it. All right. I'll get you both some breakfast, see if you can't wake her."

Jim headed out and Castle glanced down at the woman plastered against his side. He didn't feel right waking her when his own sleep had been so long; she probably needed the rest. But maybe she needed the relief of his eyes actually open more than her own closed.

"Kate," he whispered. Realized then that the mask was off, face free of it. He took a deeper breath and pressed his mouth against her forehead, moved a little to find her lips. She looked exhausted and smudged with worry, even in sleep, and he kissed her lightly, mindful of his lungs.

She stirred and came awake with a startled moan, but when her eyes opened to his, she gasped his name and threw an arm around his neck.

"_Rick_."

"Hey," he murmured, kissing the side of her face and the soft skin at her jaw. He cradled the back of her head and grinned at her. "Your dad's making us breakfast. Scrambled eggs."

And then she broke down in tears.


	14. Chapter 14

**Close Encounters 12**

* * *

When Castle woke again, Kate was curled half over him, her face mottled from crying and her lashes salted together. She was asleep but her father was in the room with breakfast, and he figured the smell had woken him.

"She okay?" he asked Jim quietly, trying not to disturb her.

Jim moved the plate of scrambled eggs and toast onto a side table and wheeled it in close. "No, but I guess she's getting there."

"What happened?" he muttered, easing his fists into the mattress to shift - slowly, very slowly - until he could reach the food without jostling Beckett.

"A lot happened," Jim sighed, taking up his own plate now and working on his eggs. He'd made sausage as well and even though the smell was alluring, Castle was pretty sure sausage would be too much for him.

"Yeah, like?" he prodded. Always like this with the Becketts, pulling teeth to get answers. He had the patience for it now, at least, after so many years. "She was crying. A lot."

Jim looked grave, but he didn't seem surprised. "It's been rough."

"Come on. Help me out here."

Her father glanced up at him and Castle realized there was some dark emotion there as well, that he wasn't untouched by it either. Castle felt his throat close up on the eggs but he took the glass of milk and swallowed fast, tried to keep from crying himself.

He'd never had this before - family - and while Kate he could understand, Kate he got because he was just the same, it still knocked him off balance to see how much Jim cared as well. And not just because of Kate, but for Castle himself.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "Never meant to scare anyone."

"Well," Jim said, a grunt more than anything, and he shook his head. "She went looking for those injections - whatever was in them did the trick - and in the process, I don't know. She did something, nearly killed a man."

"Saber," he remembered in a rush. "I - right. And?"

"And then she found the regimen but you were pretty bad off. She had to beg them to use it. Threkeld, the infectious disease doctor, he didn't want to put it in the IV because the results couldn't be confirmed - one of the batches was bad, or something - and then Logan said it wouldn't matter either way."

"What wouldn't matter?"

"You were going to die," Jim said baldly. But he'd turned his face towards the window. "You were going to die so it wouldn't matter if the injections were spoiled. Might as well."

Might as well.

Castle curled a hand at the back of Kate's skull where her cheek was pressed into his hip bone, her mouth open at his thigh, and he couldn't fathom it.

Well, actually, he could. And that might be worse.

Jim cleared his throat and wiped his mouth on a napkin. "You want anything else?"

"No, doing good just to eat this," he admitted. He was starving, but it just took so much effort. "Thanks."

"Anything," Jim said, shrugging one shoulder and settling back in his chair. "I figure I'll stay until Kate's..."

"Please," Castle murmured, his fingers flexing at her neck. He combed the hair away from her face so he could see her, but she was still deeply asleep. "Has she been dizzy?"

"Dizzy?"

"She'd been getting dizzy spells. Anemic, the doctor said."

"She hasn't said, one way or the other," Jim sighed. "But that might explain a few things."

"Can you... get Logan?" he asked quietly. "Just - Logan should take a look at her, blood test maybe to check." And he still couldn't quite kick the fear that she might have gotten infected, that he might've hurt her somehow.

More than just crying into his chest.

"Yeah," Jim said. "I'll go get him."

"Thanks."

When her father left, the door closing behind him, Castle pushed his plate away and laid his hand over Kate's back. She didn't even move in her sleep, but he saw the lines around her mouth begin to ease.

He kept his other hand in her hair and stroked slowly through the strands, over and over, reassuring them both that the damage wasn't permanent, that they were truly going to be fine.

* * *

Kate pressed her lips in a tight line and turned back to Castle. "I don't think this is what we should be concentrating on right now."

"Don't be stupid, Kate," he gruffed. His voice still sounded terrible, harsh and raw. He winced and cleared his throat, but of course that wasn't going to do it. "I don't want you getting sick with this either."

"I didn't catch it," she said. But she saw the way his eyes followed her every movement, the way he'd stopped eating breakfast to watch her. He wasn't going to focus on his own recovery if he was worried about her - and she knew that. "Fine."

Kate held out her arm to Logan and yelped when he stuck her with the needle. She gave him a withering glare and he only beamed back at her.

"You didn't tell me you were anemic when you came in here," Logan said cheerfully.

"Maybe because my husband couldn't breathe," she muttered. "Kinda sucked up all my attention."

"Well, I can breathe just fine now," Castle said. "She's been having dizzy spells."

"_She_ is sitting right here," Kate said, throwing him a look. But of course, he was still propped up in a hospital bed, his hair flat and hanging low over his eyes, the IV in his arm, and all of her heat went right out, melted to nothing. "Castle."

"No more of this taking turns shit," he said, his voice clawing out. He shook his head and cleared his throat again, but she saw him wincing. "I'm not going to let you get sick - with this or anything else - because you're focused on me."

"I get it," she said quietly. "But please don't push."

"I'm a bully," he said with a shrug. "If I have to push you-"

She snorted and shook her head. "I meant don't push yourself," she sighed.

"It's either you or me," Castle said. "I'm gonna push. But if you do what I ask the first time, I won't have to push either of us quite so hard."

Logan tapped her fingers and she had to squeeze the ball again, pump the blood out into the little vial. He gave her another grin and flashed his look over her shoulder to Castle, which she took to mean that Castle was back.

Yeah, he was. As bullying as ever. And she was so damn grateful to have him that she'd let Logan stick her with a thousand needles.

* * *

She didn't look happy with him. They had side by side IV poles now, but at least Logan had agreed to letting them move into a bedroom downstairs. Kate was giving him really nasty looks as Logan set up the IV iron drip but they were in their old room at Stone Farm again, and the things they'd done and said and the ways they'd fought to love each other here were overwhelming.

Nothing could break them, not after all they'd been through.

"This isn't a total dose infusion," Logan said. "We're going to do it slowly so we can avoid side affects. Plus, you guys have the time."

"Nothing but," Castle said. Two of the male nurses had carried him down in the elevator and installed him in the bed already. Kate had finally relented to the treatment and she sank down onto the mattress beside him. Felt good to have the bigger bed and his wife's warmth at his hip.

"All right," Logan said. "You're set. I'll come back and clean everything up after we're done here. Buzz me if you feel dizzy, chest pain, if your tongue or mouth starts to swell."

"Her mouth?" Castle asked, sitting up a little more. They'd propped him up with a specially built brace, and the pillows shifted when he glanced at Logan. "Swell-"

"Should be fine," Logan said. "Just something I gotta say. We're taking care of her."

"Good. Good. Someone should because God knows she doesn't take care of herself."

"Too busy taking care of _you_," Kate muttered, but she was already leaning closer to him. Shoulder against his. He turned his head and kissed her temple even as Logan left them alone.

"Thanks for taking care of me," he said softly. He wanted her to curl up with him, wanted her to stop worrying every time his breath hitched or he winced at the rawness of his throat.

"Castle," she sighed, turning into his shoulder. He untangled his arm to wrap it around her, careful not to pull on the IV. "I came home and you couldn't breathe."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just... I was supposed to be taking care of you then. I was supposed to know. How come I didn't know?"

"I thought I was fine - getting better. You heard Dr Threkeld. It was a mutated virus; it got weird."

"That's so scientific," she muttered, but he heard the laugh in her voice. At least there was that.

"And apparently I have weird red blood cells, right?" he went on. Had to. This was stuff they had to talk about, figure out. "But I'm okay now."

"But what happens next time?" she asked, tilting back to look at him. "What happens when those injections are gone and some other normal virus ends up turning super?"

He didn't try to gloss it over, make it less than it was. "I don't know, Kate. I'm not sure how likely that is to happen. Threkeld seemed to think it was a fluke - the pneumonia got a foothold and exploited it - but I'll be more careful of myself next time."

"Next time you fall into a lake? And why... Castle, you haven't been right for a long time now. The lake was just one more consequence of you not having this thing, this regimen."

"I'm not going back on the regimen," he said clearly, shaking his head at her. "I'm already - my blood cells are messed up by this shit and I don't want to pass that on. Whatever fucked up DNA I've got... God, Kate, I don't even know if we should, if we even _can_-"

She pressed her hand over his mouth, a sudden heat that made him pause. She shook her head at him. "Stop. Don't say that. I'm not worried about the genetics you might give our kid. I'm worried about _you_."

But he _was_ worried about their future kid, what he might inherit, what problems were inherent in his DNA and how they might go off like ticking timebombs. He didn't want to do that to his kid, to Kate, to their family.

Taking the regimen meant shaping his DNA into whatever Black had intended it for - machine or man or some other combination. And he wouldn't do that.

"Look, I want to think about the regimen as a bad drug habit that I'm trying to kick," he said finally. He couldn't help but feel how tense she was beside him, how ready to fight him - for him. "I'm a recovering regimen user, and I can't go back to it. Maybe it saved my life - but it did just like small doses of heroin saves the life of the addict in intense treatment. I won't go back to it."

"But what if you need it again? Rick, we used up all of it but one last vial to kill the pneumonia, and one vial won't save you next time."

"I don't want to need it," he said insistently. "I won't need it. I promise. We'll figure this out."

"But if it can save your life-"

"Nothing of Black's will ever save my life, Kate. Not in the long run. At the end of the day, his way will only hurt me. Hurt _us._ I won't do it."

She let out a long breath beside him, but she laid her cheek against his shoulder, her hand tangling with his, fingers so thin, so brittle. "I don't want to have a baby only to turn around and lose you - lose his father."

Castle dropped his chin to the top of her head and sucked in a hard breath, closed his eyes to that vision. "It won't happen. I promise. I'll be a lot more careful if I get sick - from now on, Kate - and we'll figure out how to keep from needing the regimen. I promise. I'm not going anywhere. I'd never leave you to do it all alone."

She drew her arm slowly across her body, the IV line dragging along the sheets, and she gripped the material of his scrub shirt with her fist. As if she could hold him to it.

He wasn't going anywhere. He'd find a way without the regimen.

* * *

She didn't know how to make him understand. What it had done to her, hearing his chest collapsing and his lungs filled with fluid and seeing the desperate panic in his eyes as he looked at her, drugged and half-sedated and yet still able to feel himself drowning.

When she slept, she went deep, and she dreamed deep, too deep to move or break free, too deep to scream.

She dreamed him drowning.

She didn't think she could do it again, this whole thing. She didn't think he'd survive it either. His 'weird' blood cells might carry more oxygen, might give him an advantage, but it gave the viruses advantages too. And without the regimen - which did what, she had no idea - without it regulating him or helping him or shoring up his defenses...

Logan came back into the room and paused when he saw that Castle was asleep; he gave Kate a wink and slipped in quietly, came to disconnect her from the IV.

"Any dizziness?" he murmured.

"No. But I'm sitting down," she answered. "How long?"

"We'll infuse at this time for five days, see where that gets us." Logan was carefully spreading a band-aid over the crook of her elbow.

"And him?" she asked, glancing over at Castle. He'd fallen asleep propped up again, his face turned towards her and a hand on her thigh. She stroked the back of his fingers and looked to Logan. "Is he okay?"

"He's good. His blood tests came back clear. Well, clear for him. Threkeld is fascinated by his misshapen red blood cells. He'd be an ally for you, Kate, if you want to tell him the truth of things."

That Castle was a CIA pet project, that this wasn't some strange fluke. "I might do that. I'd have to talk to him first," she sighed, her eyes once more on her husband.

Logan wrapped up the tubing and disposed of the needle in a biohazard bag, started wheeling the IV pole out. "You need anything?"

"I'm good," she said softly. But it wasn't true. She wasn't good; she still felt like she was drowning. Not just him, but herself as well. Just as she'd laid flat over the ice to grab for him, just as she'd had that moment where they had both known she'd go under to save him, she felt like maybe she really _had_. Maybe she still was.

Jim came in as Logan was going out, smiled at them in the bed. She rolled her eyes and flexed her fingers over the band-aid. "Hey, dad."

"Hey, sweetheart. Carrie just called me."

"Oh, no. What's happened?"

"No, everything's fine. She said that she's in a cousin's wedding in Hawaii-?"

"I forgot," Kate groaned, shifting forward. She wasn't sure what she meant to do - stand up or go somewhere - but her father made a disapproving noise and came to her side, kept her down.

"No. Don't. I'm going to pick up Sasha and take her home with me. When Castle's better and you're no longer strung up to that pole, you come get her. Meanwhile, this gets me out of your hair and I can take care of her dog, Bo, too."

"Carrie's too young for you, Dad."

He laughed at that, lifting one of those salted eyebrows. "She's a friend. Besides, I'm still holding out hope for her and Mitch. Those two-"

"I think it would be a disaster," she laughed back, smiling up at him. "Thank you, Dad. For coming. For Sasha and Bo and... everything."

"You're my girl," he whispered, bending down to kiss her temple. His fingers squeezed at her shoulder. "Tell Rick I'll see him later. You guys come by the cabin when you're healed up. That's where we'll be."

"Love you," she said, wrapping her arm around his neck and hanging on for a second. Like she used to do when she was four or five and she was afraid of the dark. She'd wanted him for just one moment longer, to give her the courage to face it alone.

"Love you too, Katie. Tell him that too."

"Thank Carrie for me."

"Will do." He stood from her embrace and winked as he left, patting her foot and shaking her big toe in good-bye.

When her father had shut the door behind him, she turned in bed and pressed her palm to Castle's chest, felt the rise and fall of his breathing. She couldn't help but lean closer, put her cheek to his heartbeat.

Maybe if she felt his pulse, maybe if she could sense the expansion of his lungs, maybe then her sleep would be dreamless.

* * *

Castle woke to noise, something wrong, but it was hard to come fully out of his unconsciousness. He'd slept deeply, too deep maybe, and he couldn't understand why an animal had gotten inside-

"Kate," he grunted. Peeled open his eyes only to find her sobbing in her sleep. One of her hands was close to his face and he took it, drew her body into his with both arms. "Kate, love. Hey, hey, Kate."

He wasn't sure if there were tears or not, but she shuddered and gasped, weeping in her dreams, and he cradled her at first, not knowing what to do.

"Kate. Kate, you're okay, love. It's okay."

It was killing him, these awful sounds coming from her chest. Like she was trapped. He stopped rocking her, afraid it only pushed her further into sleep, and he squeezed her arms, the back of her neck, tried to introduce stimulus to shock her awake.

"Kate. Wake up. Come on. Enough." He patted her cheek, not quite slapping, a little harder when she sobbed, and he felt the tears now, the slick of wetness on her face. "Kate. Wake up."

She flailed out when she came awake, gasping, pulse pounding under his fingers at her neck. She groaned and turned away from him, clinging to the edge of the mattress, her face buried in her pillow.

"Kate," he said quietly, hovering behind her, not sure whether or not she could stand for him to touch her. "You awake?"

"_God_," she moaned, her voice muffled by the pillow.

He laid a hesitant hand on her shoulder and she shuddered but grabbed his wrist, yanked his arm around her. So Castle laid at her back and wrapped her up, slid his thigh between her knees. He thought she might still be crying, but it was hard to know with Kate; she pushed everything down.

"Kate," he whispered, his mouth resting at her shoulder in a sealing kiss. "You're okay. You're awake now."

She moved her face out of the pillow and sucked in air, over and over just trying to get her breath back, and he closed his eyes and stayed silent through it. Waiting for her.

After a moment, she turned in his arms, their legs tangled, and she pressed her face into his neck, her ear to his chest. He curled his fingers in her hair and combed through the tangles, his lips at her temple. "What can I do, sweetheart? Tell me what to do."

"Just don't die. Just don't die," she begged. But her words were already fainter and fading, already she was falling back into sleep, tumbling hard.

Castle stayed awake for a long time, guarding her sleep.

After Russia, he'd promised her to be responsible with himself because she loved him. Not even six months ago, he'd been so wise and mature and now look what he'd done.

* * *

She opened her eyes to warmth, and the vivid blue of his eyes on her. He looked so serious, but he was alive, alive, he was in bed with her and she could hear him breathing.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she whispered, smiled at him because he was here. She nuzzled closer for his smell, the scent of skin and oil, deodorant and soap, the winter trees and cool night of him. She loved that smell. Even fever sweat hadn't kept it away.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly.

She opened her eyes and drew her head back to look at him. He was so intense, his eyes that uncompromising slate. She moved her hand up to press her fingers to his lips, smiled again at him. "Why are you sorry?"

"I didn't think," he said. That intensity was for her, she saw, about her.

"You don't have to think. Just get better. That's all I want."

"I should've realized," he said again, curling his hand at her elbow and stroking her skin. She felt it all the way to her toes, made her lungs catch at the touch of him.

"Realized what?"

"I'm so sorry, Kate. You... we'll look into the regimen. We'll find a way to reproduce it or get more or whatever has to happen. Okay?"

Some hard knot in her chest suddenly loosened. She sucked in a breath and pushed up on one elbow, tried to understand how _no, never_ had turned into _let's do this._ "Castle?"

"It'll keep me super, right? So let's find a way. You were right - having more information, knowing what's going on with me, that's important."

She scrambled to sit up, staring at him, and he sat up as well, pushing off the mattress. She realized suddenly that he hadn't been sleeping on the brace, that he'd been lying down, and her heart flipped.

She pressed her hand to his chest. "Your breathing's okay? You slept lying down all night?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm pretty much back to normal. See? You're right. You're right about the regimen. We'll do whatever it takes."

"But you said... what about not wanting that inheritance? And..." She closed her eyes and tried to muster up some understanding of what had just happened here, but she had no idea. He was suddenly fine and healthy and being reasonable?

"Kate, that's not going to matter if I'm dead, right? You said it. I just - I see things differently. I attack problems differently. I wasn't thinking about it yesterday in the right way."

"The right way," she said carefully. There was something behind this that she knew she wouldn't like - if only she knew what it was.

"My default is just to soldier on. To take the hits when they come. I wasn't thinking about - about everything else." His eyes were so bright, so vivid on hers. He was saying things with them that she couldn't quite get. "I've always been able to take it. I've always been able to handle whatever came. But now... there's you."

"I can _handle_-"

"No, not what I mean," he said hastily, holding up pleading hands. "Not like that. I mean. I'm trying to protect our future but I... still take on things like I'm the only one I have to think about. That's not fair to you."

She didn't think she liked this. But she didn't know why.

"That's not right either," he sighed. "Where's Dr King when you need him?"

"You need to be able to tell me what you mean," she said slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"I go at life like everything is going to be fine. It'll be fine because I'll make it fine. I'll make it be right. But I can't just offer you only that - _oh, don't worry, it'll be fine_. That's not - there's no solid ground in that."

"You - out of anyone, Castle - you can make that a reality," she said quietly. "You don't have to change how you handle things just because I'm here."

"But Kate... I _make_ it fine because I'm better than the rest... because of the regimen. You're the one who figured it out first, calling me the super spy. You were right. If I don't have that, then how do I make it fine?"

Her jaw dropped.

"Then those promises I make you become empty, and worse than empty - foolish. Because if I'm some broken machine, I can't-"

"No, stop," she whispered. "Stop. Don't. You're not a machine."

"I am," he said, a crooked smile for her. "And I broke myself. I'm more than a machine now, Kate, but I still have all these working parts. Gotta keep them in order or else this doesn't work."

"It works. We work. I don't need you to be on the regimen."

"Yes," he said slowly. "You do. And I do too."

* * *

She'd had four days of iron IV and she looked a thousand times better than he could ever remember. Even his best memories, the gilded ones, even the memory of her sitting at a table at Remy's alone, eating on the run during the middle of a case, her lines pure and sharp and making him fall in love with her - even those couldn't compare to how she looked now.

"Stop staring at me, Castle. It's creepy."

"You love it," he insisted, though maybe it was more creepy than he'd meant.

"Come on. Do I need to help you mount?" she smirked, already getting a foot in her stirrup and sliding up so smoothly. Graceful. She'd been missing that too, he realized now. So much had been lacking in her every day movements and he'd been completely oblivious.

Now that he saw her healthy, he was determined to keep it that way. He was going to erase the lines at her mouth that pinched and smooth the smudges under her eyes from her restless sleep.

"I'm coming," he said, snapping out of his staring. He mounted the massive beast he'd grown to love the last time they were here, and he took his place beside her.

Her mare was nothing like the gentle thing he'd saddled for her when she'd been recovering from the gunshot wound to the chest, but he saw the spirit in this lively horse was being transferred to Kate as well. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair thick around her neck and shining. The mare had the look of a stallion somehow - fierce and ready for battle - and Kate nosed her forward, leading the way.

Castle was content to watch, keeping his horse in check with a pull of the reins - and his teeth away from the mare's hindquarters. The mare's tale swished in defense and Kate looked at him over her shoulder, a smile splitting her face.

"You feel pretty good, don't you?" she laughed.

"I do," he answered, grinning himself. All due to her. Saving his ass first and now saving herself. Healthy. They were both healthy. It was good news and it felt a long time coming.

"Logan's gonna kick us out soon," she warned.

"Naw. I talked to Ragle," he admitted. "Since Threkeld is still here. We've got a couple more days."

She nodded but he saw the flash of it in her eyes, stronger now because she was stronger, and he knew enough to head it off at the pass.

"Also, talked to Mitch. Did he message you?"

"Yeah. He has news on his interview with Viktor Bout, he said."

"That's right. He's working on follow-up, checking the intel. But we might have a credible lead on where Bracken's putting his money."

She was staring at him. He nudged his horse closer and their knees knocked.

"I can't believe it," she murmured. Her cheeks were pink. He loved that look, and the way her eyes met his now like he'd reinvented the world for her. He wanted that all the time, was greedy for it. He wanted to give her everything, all of it, all the things they'd been denied.

"Believe it," he grinned wider. "And your boy Esposito had a hand in cracking Bout, I hear."

"Why didn't _I _hear?" she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

He shrugged. Nothing could spoil this moment; in fact, he found that he kinda adored the way she was miffed at him. The good angry. The fun sex angry. He couldn't remember the last time they'd looked at each other without being afraid that someone wasn't going to make it out alive.

"I told him to keep it from you. I wanted to be the one to tell you. That's for me. Only for me."

She let out a startled laugh, like she didn't want to find it amusing, and her leg brushed his again as their horses came close. She reached out and snagged the pant leg of his jeans, tugging a little.

"You're back to your old self, I see," she murmured. She had love in her eyes though. Like stars, everything so bright.

She looked good again, happy. He wanted her happy. He wanted to make his promises to her a reality she could believe in, not just rash oaths that crumbled under the weight of all this. He'd prove it to her, prove that his promises were good, that they really were going to be fine. More than fine. They were good. So good.

"All right, Castle. You're so pleased with yourself it's kind of insufferable. You promised me a winter picnic, so lead the way."

He wanted to kiss her to seal in all those promises, but the horse was too far away. Instead he squeezed his mount ahead onto the trail and set out to not just prove it - but to make it good.

* * *

She wondered if the pills he'd used to throw away contained some of those mood stabilizers because he now was seriously _up_. Had been since he'd recovered.

Kate let him unfurl the picnic blanket and set everything out, and she hobbled the horses under a tree so they could crop the dead winter grass. Neither looked too happy with her, so she stole the apples from Castle's bag and handed them over. The gelding blew in her face with happiness and nudged her away with his nose.

She laughed and patted his neck, moved to Castle who was setting out a couple of thermoses. It better be coffee because it was the middle of January and she was freezing.

He handed her one with a grin and she shook her head at him, pulled her coat tighter around her body. Castle wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her in close, kissed her temple with a sigh like contentment.

"I've missed you," he said. "Missed us. Being easy."

"We've never really been easy," she murmured, but she wrapped her fingers around the thermos to keep them warm. He seemed impervious to the cold, and she remembered a hundred other days like this, how she used to marvel at how solid a wall he was.

He was again. He hadn't been, somewhere in the midst of all this. He'd been suffering and she hadn't seen it because his decline had been so gradual. Needing a coat when they went outside and dropping a piece of fruit on their kitchen floor because he wasn't looking. He hadn't been like that when she'd first met him. He'd stayed awake all night to keep watch in her apartment and he'd ridden the subway in just his undershirt when she'd been freezing.

"Stop thinking so much," he whispered. "You're right it's never been easy, but we have. We always have. Haven't we?"

Maybe for him - the man who'd rooted himself at her apartment and in her heart. "Nothing has ever really been easy for me, Castle."

"This is," he murmured, drawing her in against him. She heard his heart beating under the thin plaid of his shirt and she thought maybe it really was. That easy. His heartbeat at her ear. All she really wanted.

"Sometimes things get complicated and messy," she hesitated. But still his heart thumped, regular and slow, barely winded. "But I've always loved you. Even when I didn't think I should."

"I know, love." His fingers came and tucked into the collar of her coat; his hands were so warm, burned right through the chill against her skin. "Maybe I think too much of myself, but I knew then too."

She laughed at that, felt the warmth traveling down her spine and unfurling in her guts. How much she wanted him, how much she loved him. How much she needed him to be here, his heart beating under her ear. "You do think a lot of yourself, but as we've seen, you_ are _super. So it seems to be warranted."

He laughed then too, a loud sound that echoed against the trees surrounding their clearing. She tucked the thermos closer to her body and nudged her nose into his jaw. She was only in flat knee-boots and the discrepancy in their heights made him feel so broad and wide and forever. Like this, he could never die.

With the regimen. Look how much it'd changed him, how much he'd needed it.

"There's only one left," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said, instinctively closing her mouth.

"I love you too, you know. You're just... You never stop, Kate. You amaze me at every turn. I don't know how I got so lucky, God or Fate or the Universe, but I can't imagine - I never want to do this without you."

She wrapped her arms around him and hung on, pressing close, wanting deep, because at least he was in this with her. They were the same, partners in their love.

She was going to have to find out where Black had stashed the regimen. She had to. Castle needed it.

And she needed him.

* * *

**The End of Close Encounters 12: Dr No**

**Stay Tuned for Close Encounters 13: Quantum of Solace**

_**after the winter hiatus - January 6**_


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